Remember the Amazon Fire phone? Yeah, me neither. I think the last time I stumbled upon this imbroglio of a phone was precisely two years ago, when the DOJ almost accused Apple and its iPhone of sabotaging the Amazon Fire phone.The 2014 Amazon Fire phone was one of the biggest flops in the industry for the whole 2010–2020 decade. Things got so bad (it wasn’t selling at all) that Amazon had to cut the $650 price down to $160. That still wasn’t enough of an incentive to get people buying and the project was terminated after 14 months.Now, more than a decade later, Amazon might be ready to unleash a new smartphone on the world.
The Transformer!
This was one of the biggest tech flops of the 2010s era. | Image by PhoneArena
The in-house project title is “Transformer”, a new and detailed report by Reuters reads. Developed in secret by Amazon’s devices and services units, the upcoming handset will most likely sync with the voice assistant Alexa. Sounds logical.
What’s more, the “Transformer” phone is designed to be an AI-driven voice assistant that has Amazon shopping at its mind. The phone could very well offer discounts for Prime subscribers and will surely gather a ton of useful data, like your purchase history and preferences.
The project is so secret that no further details are available at the moment. Nobody outside the company really knows anything about, say, its screen size, chipset, or the battery capacity of this thing. The price – one of the most important aspects of any phone, especially in today’s economy – is also unknown right now. There are no dates attached to the project, either.
What the insiders were able to tell Reuters is that this phone is expected to work as an extension, as another platform for Amazon services like Prime Video and Prime Music, plus, it could offer some special Grubhub food offers. While Alexa would “likely be a core feature”, it would not “necessarily” be the primary operating system of the phone. Interesting.
Moreover, if the rumored handset indeed comes with ubiquitous AI features, this could “eliminate the need for traditional app stores”. Very interesting.
The timing could be a key factor, too. The smartphone market is expected to plunge 13%, as 2026 might be the worst year for handset sales since 2023.
You better meditate on this one, Amazon!
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