Amazon Lays Off Engineers Behind The Fire Phone

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For the first time in eleven years, Amazon is laying off engineers at Lab126. The company is also scaling back on other hardware projects as well.

Amazon's top secret Lab126, the group responsible for Amazon's failed Fire smartphone and other consumer hardware, is facing job cuts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon has retrenched dozens of engineers at Lab126 that worked on the Fire, and killed off or scaled back a number of other hardware projects that were under development.
 
wonder wot the numbers are for sold fire phones. they seemed to be on the right track with it.

wonder if development on fire tv boxes is being sclaed back
 
Yaka said:
wonder wot the numbers are for sold fire phones. they seemed to be on the right track with it.

wonder if development on fire tv boxes is being sclaed back
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Fire Tv doesn't require nearly the engineering a phone does. Its a cheap processor with wifi that is mostly static.
 
I just got a fire stick for $39 (free with their credit card application) and that thing is amazingly snappy compared to the rokus and apple tvs that I've seen. Supposedly it has a dual core cpu and 8 gigs ram. It's an impressive bit of engineering.
 
They should really lay off the dumbass that approved the project.
 
Spire3660 said:
Fire Tv doesn't require nearly the engineering a phone does. Its a cheap processor with wifi that is mostly static.
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Yeah, this is why an unknown like Roku can be such a headache for established behemoths trying to break into the streaming space (like Apple, Amazon and Google).
 
Whoever came up with those awful Fire phone commercials with the hipster kids also deserves to be punished severely.
 
TechLarry said:
They should really lay off the dumbass that approved the project.
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Ding ding ding. Whoever green lit and overpriced faux Android phone locked to AT&T (at launch). Unfortunately it was likely Bezos trying to leverage the companies success in the slow and cheap tablet market to create a halo phone that almost zero people wanted.

Amazon would have been better off to work on $200 unlocked phones that anyone could use. With carriers dropping contracts now, the market is ripe for value phones.
 
Fire OS was the biggest issue with Fire Phone.

Just call it it what it is, an Android phone, keep OS mostly stock, update it often and it will sell.

people didn't want another eco-system.
 
nekrosoft13 said:
Fire OS was the biggest issue with Fire Phone.

Just call it it what it is, an Android phone, keep OS mostly stock, update it often and it will sell.

people didn't want another eco-system.
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Yeah, people were more willing to put up with the closed ecosystem with the tablets because those are used purely for entertainment. Also, Amazon sells them for no profit because they expect to sell content.

But the Fire Phone was sold at the same cost as other phones, without the same flexibility. Anyone could see it was a train wreck from the start except for Amazon.
 
If the handset had been a Pure Google AOSP handset, with a good price tag, it would have sold out.

What the cell phone market did NOT need was another attempt at a new eco system. Especially when ALL that eco system did was try to sell you stuff, or make it easier for you to buy stuff.

They had a great idea with the hardware at the time when it was designed... but the software side of things doomed the phone.
 
The engineers were not at fault. Blame the people who decided to sell the phone for $600 when there were better high-end phones out at the time. Also making it an AT&T exclusive was really dumb. If it had retailed for even $400 when it launched, I think the Fire Phone would've been quite successful.
 
DocSavage said:
I just got a fire stick for $39 (free with their credit card application) and that thing is amazingly snappy compared to the rokus and apple tvs that I've seen. Supposedly it has a dual core cpu and 8 gigs ram. It's an impressive bit of engineering.
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I got one too, i tried the Chrome stick and it doesn't even compare. I am already stream from my computer to Fire stick with Kodi. :D watch anything i want plus it has real apps like netflix, youtube.
 
Wasn't that one of Bezos' pet projects? Of course, failure means you aren't trying hard enough, so he should get a raise, and for cutting off those wasteful engineers who did what they were told so quickly.
 
nekrosoft13 said:
Fire OS was the biggest issue with Fire Phone.

Just call it it what it is, an Android phone, keep OS mostly stock, update it often and it will sell.

people didn't want another eco-system.
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Exactly. Put stock android on the Fire phone and it would have sold very well, it's actually a very solid phone at a good price.
 
From the end of the article:
It's not all over for Lab126, which is still forging ahead with a high-end computer for the kitchen dubbed Kabinet, another smart home device that takes voice commands for ordering things from amazon.com. It's also working on a battery for the Kindle e-reader which could last two years on a single charge rather than the current six to eight weeks.

The turbulence at Lab126 has also caused a high turnover rate at the unit, sources told WSJ, which noted the recent loss of engineer Jon McCormack to Google.
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Sounds like the failure of the Fire Phone and lack of interesting things in the pipeline scared off the top Lab126 people before this happened. That extreme-life battery sounds unrealistic and the Kabinet sounds like a flop-on-arrival. What's next, an iWatch clone that helps you order more crap from Amazon?
 
nekrosoft13 said:
Fire OS was the biggest issue with Fire Phone.

Just call it it what it is, an Android phone, keep OS mostly stock, update it often and it will sell.

people didn't want another eco-system.
Click to expand...

True; that is for the android purist out there.
My wife and I both have Fire Phones and they are excellent. Most of the better apps you can get from the Amazon app store plus the method to side load Android apps isn't too difficult.

The 3D view thing is neat, but gimicky. I really think if they added dual cameras for 3D pix and video it would have been a huge hit. Built quality is excellent, as good or better than the iphone. Battery life is excellent and it is plenty fast.

Really I think the deal breaker for most was the price tag when it hit the market. A bit too expensive for a phone you are locked into the Amazon eco system.

We got ours when they offered them for $100 each plus a year of prime. That was an unbeatable deal. We pitched our crappy Samsung phones in the trash and we have had no issues with the Fire Phones. That is the FIRST time I can say that about any cell phone I ever owned.
 
The amazon fire phone current pricing is just too good to pass up. I have had three now, just got two a few days ago. The first one i had, i was able to sideload google playstore, google hangouts which is a big deal to me. I am tied into the google ecosystem for calling, texting, instant message, photo sharing, youtube, music, video -- so when the google app store and account services dont work it makes me rage.

on 3.6 it was working, then an update hit and it went to crap. I listed the phone for sale, then it upgraded to 4.6.1 ? it seemed to work flawless for a day or two but it was sold and shipped out. months later, im back willing to try it again, now on 4.6.4 looks like google apps dont work yet, i hear rumors of them working on lollipop update. Thinking of trying CM11 rom... not sure what to do yet.

Again, great hardware -- but i understand why people avoid it like the plague.
 
It's always the engineers or lower "Lackeys" that get canned for stuff like this. For what it did, it did well, but the built in "shopping" features were ridiculous for anyone that just wanted a phone.
 
Lifelite said:
It's always the engineers or lower "Lackeys" that get canned for stuff like this. For what it did, it did well, but the built in "shopping" features were ridiculous for anyone that just wanted a phone.
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You think this is bad, wait till you see Angry Birds 2.
 
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