The Real Story Behind Jeff Bezos's Fire Phone Debacle

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Fast Company has posted one of those "the real story" articles about the Amazon Fire Phone. A lot of anonymous "insider" stuff but still kind of interesting.

Introduced with grand ambitions last summer, the Fire Phone is widely seen as a fiasco. Originally priced at $199 (with contract) and intended as an iPhone competitor, it now sells for 99 cents, and Amazon has taken a $170 million write-down largely attributable to unsold Fire Phone inventory.
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I might have read the article if that gigantic photo of Jeff Bezos didn't immediately scare me off.
 
For an Article titled the "Real Story behind the Fire Phone Debacle" there was very little info on why it was a debacle and what happened other than on release it was $200 + contract and today it is $1 + contract.

Most of it is some vague jibber jabber about how Amazon's low profit, high reinvestment strategy might be wearing thin with investors (like that hasn't been said before).

Here I thought there might of been some story or reason why Amazon thought they could sell an under-performing and basically ad-subsidized device for the same price as premier flagship phones on contract.

Its puzzling because Amazon knows the difference, the original Fire was based on the ad/walled garden subsidy premise and did well (at least in sales). People were willing to deal with ads limited app store for a deal.
 
EAT IT Bezo!

I would LOVE to have a Fire Phone but Unlocked thank you. At $450 KEEP IT!
I want a AT&T contract like a want a facial tumor.
If they priced it reasonably unlocked they wouldn't be able to keep them in stock.
 
Sorry I stand corrected... I thought the article was over with ads at the bottom but it was just a "break" lol.

Will have to finish reading, its actually nice to have an article longer then 3 paragraphs.
 
i /care less about the fire phone but you can put a stock 5.0 rom on it so :D
 
dandirk said:
For an Article titled the "Real Story behind the Fire Phone Debacle" there was very little info on why it was a debacle and what happened other than on release it was $200 + contract and today it is $1 + contract.
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Yup it was very...blah...as these insider pieces go. Only interesting part about is how micro-managing Bezos was over the whole flop, and how "this guy has to know what he's doing" his underlings in R&D were.
 
Firephone was an attempt to put Amazon's shopping, music, video, etc. "in the palm of your hand". Unfortunately for Jeff Bezos, people are not wanting that just yet.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
EAT IT Bezo!

I would LOVE to have a Fire Phone but Unlocked thank you. At $450 KEEP IT!
I want a AT&T contract like a want a facial tumor.
If they priced it reasonably unlocked they wouldn't be able to keep them in stock.
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Basically this.. I'm interested at sub $200 and not att.
 
amddragonpc said:
Firephone was an attempt to put Amazon's shopping, music, video, etc. "in the palm of your hand". Unfortunately for Jeff Bezos, people are not wanting that just yet.
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Actually, lots of people do want that...but not with having to pay $$$ for a mid-tier hardware phone that is priced as a premium product on a completely locked down crappy OS (that will never see updates) where you have to re-purchase all your apps. Oh yea, and Amazon's attempt at an appstore has a small catalog of apps comparatively and almost all are many versions behind Google's. And after the price reduction...the device is still running two year old hardware on a crappy locked down OS (that will never see updates). Who wants that?


Bezos' ego ultimately killed the device. Safe to say, presuming the OP article is correct about his micromanaging.
 
The one thing I'm left wondering is did he learn anything from this experience?
 
Ultima99 said:
The one thing I'm left wondering is did he learn anything from this experience?
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If this blurb is true and reflects what Bezos really thinks:

OP said:
Yet Bezos finally answers the question with the kind of reasoning that investors, customers, and pundits have come to expect from him: Amazon is going to pour more resources into its phone. Defending the Fire Phone as a "bold bet," Bezos argues that it’s "going to take many iterations" and "some number of years" to get it right.
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Then that would be a "no".
 
I blame those awful commercials with the little kids acting like business saavy hipsters. Those were the worst.
 
Bad advertising, as noted above.
Bad price (not inline with what's expected from an Amazon device - and there was no "value" argument, either), as noted above.
Stuck with AT&T, which is enough to kill the deal for me.
At launch, few modern features (like multitasking). It's basically a more expensive, less functional Fire tablet with a smaller screen. Who didn't see this failing?
 
Everthing amazon has done for many years has come down to one thing, they are the tech version of walmart the company that keeps making wins by selling for the lowest price The kindle stuck squarely with this objective. The fire phone sucked because they tried to make a premium device. That's it.

Not that the fire phone should not be made, it should be because the future looks more and more every day like there will be some massive monopoly by google or whomever wins the smart phone war. But going at it from a premium device standpoint was dumb. Also for all the talk about micromanaging Bezos and his buds don't know shit about designing a user interface. Fire devices absolutely blow, they sell because they offer value that in the past was hard to find. Lets see if kindle keeps selling now that so many dirt cheap android and windows phone devices are on the market.
 
I have a different Fire OS device and I would steer someone away from the Fire phone if asked because it runs Fire OS. Android updates are very long delayed, Amazon disables functionality inside its version and jealously locks out other Android stores. Having its own ecosystem wouldn't be a problem if Fire OS had good alternatives for each replaced component, but it doesn't. Most of what was removed was replaced by far inferior built in apps.
 
It was simple. They let their Amazon ego get in the way. If you want to jump into a marketplace that is already saturated, your first few models should be loss-leaders or close to it. The whole purpose of this device was to get the data/ad info and push prime services.

$199-$249 no contract, it would have sold.
 
interesting thing was the point about branding: Amazon, unlike Apple, is never an aspirational/cool brand, so they can't really command premium prices.

also, even though no one saw a use case for the 3d feature (which they spent a "surreal" amount of money on), no was was able to say so to Jeff Bezos.
 
I am still scratching my head after the Fire Phone was released. I know of no one that has one.
I work in software development for mobile phones - no clients have even asked about it.
Maybe the next iteration will make it more appealing. I recall thinking that the original Kindle was stupid. Now I own a Kindle DX (and have read a lot of books on it). I';; probably get another Kindle when this one breaks. I also use AWS for work (it's nice) and definitely buy a lot of stuff from Amazon.
 
Cmdrmonkey said:
I blame those awful commercials with the little kids acting like business saavy hipsters. Those were the worst.
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omg, yes.

the one thing you don't want is to treat the people who are paying these ugly contract prices, and expensive phones as kids. It sends the message that it is FOR kids.
 
Can I put CyanogenMoD on a Fire Phone? FAIL!
Does it have a SD Card slot? FAIL!
Does it have Google Play? FAIL!

You'd have to pay me to use this phone. :mad:
 
There was no compelling reason in the consumer's mind to tear them away from Android or iPhone. In fact, it look feature-limited. And, why would I want to go to AT&T Wireless? Now, can you get some of those apps that were exclusive to the Fire phone and out to the regular marketplace as to salvage this mess?
 
Time for a lot of you to put your money where your mouth is :D

Amazon deal of the day: Fire Phone 32GB - Unlocked GSM - $189 - Includes 1 year of Prime.

It's almost worth it to get it for the year of prime then just resell.
 
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Cmdrmonkey said:
I blame those awful commercials with the little kids acting like business saavy hipsters. Those were the worst.
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And here I thought all savvy hipsters were actually little kids.

In all seriousness though, is the Fire phone any good?
 
HeavensCloud said:
Time for a lot of you to put your money where your mouth is :D

Amazon deal of the day: Fire Phone 32GB - Unlocked GSM - $189 - Includes 1 year of Prime.

It's almost worth it to get it for the year of prime then just resell.
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Reselling the phone, when not even Amazon can sell of $80,000,000 worth of unsold moving inventory for $0.99 per device...are you stupid?

spugm1r3 said:
And here I thought all savvy hipsters were actually little kids.

In all seriousness though, is the Fire phone any good?
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Its hardware was mediocre when it was released. Its OS will never see updates. Its OS will forever be completely locked down to an appstore full of obsolete versions of what is on Play.

You tell me how that sounds?
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Skripka said:
Reselling the phone, when not even Amazon can sell of $80,000,000 worth of unsold moving inventory for $0.99 per device...are you stupid?
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It's not $0.99, the price is $189. Through some internet miracle buyers were not, and still are not fooled by the 2 year contract price.

They would be wise to leak a bootloader unlock and liquidate the remaining hardware for under $100 each.
 
gunbust3r said:
It's not $0.99, the price is $189. Through some internet miracle buyers were not, and still are not fooled by the 2 year contract price.

They would be wise to leak a bootloader unlock and liquidate the remaining hardware for under $100 each.
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It wasn't a miracle price. It was $0.99 with a 2 year contract,has been that way since September. Still hasn't sold.
 
gunbust3r said:
It's not $0.99, the price is $189. Through some internet miracle buyers were not, and still are not fooled by the 2 year contract price.

They would be wise to leak a bootloader unlock and liquidate the remaining hardware for under $100 each.
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I'd buy the phone at $150 if I could put a decent ROM on it.
 
This is cool.
Will talk to the wife this evening. I'm leaning toward this phone. I don't mind it is Amazon locked down; I'm more interested in reliability and performance. Our current phones (Samsungs Centuras) are GARBAGE. I didn't think they would be this bad. I really wanted just a reliable phone which it is NOT. I already threw mine across the room once because the price of sh*t refused to answer an important incoming call no matter how many times I tried to answer it. The protector case shattered and the phone was OK.
 
deasnutz said:
I think they would have been better off making a TV.
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Na, I think a cool product would be "movie glasses"
Not necessary VR, but just for watching video from your smart phone.

Sorta like:
tumblr_l30q1qVjbJ1qbhfuao1_500.jpg


These cheap gizmos have been around for years but they are very low res.
A real HD stereo image set of video glasses would be a hit at a reasonable price point.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Na, I think a cool product would be "movie glasses"
Not necessary VR, but just for watching video from your smart phone.

Sorta like:
tumblr_l30q1qVjbJ1qbhfuao1_500.jpg


These cheap gizmos have been around for years but they are very low res.
A real HD stereo image set of video glasses would be a hit at a reasonable price point.
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Honestly that would be great for flying, for me. No need to have the lunch tray down.

Although it may be a bit hard to eat at the same time...
 
TwistedAegis said:
Honestly that would be great for flying, for me. No need to have the lunch tray down.

Although it may be a bit hard to eat at the same time...
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Yeah, and since it isn't a VR device nor pretends to be, it does not need to be big, heavy and clunky. lay back in your hammock and play games, watch a movie; Skype even.

They can come up with a snappy name like "Amazon MovieShades".

Look at all these free ideas! They should cut me a check! :D
 
Skripka said:
are you stupid?
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Only if you are too stupid to take 15 seconds to check average selling price of the phone on ebay. A lot of people aren't using these as phones, therefore do not want a contract.
 
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