More than a decade ago, Amazon tried to break into the smartphone market with the fire phone. The result was such a monumental failure that the company withdrew it from the market the year after launching it, having sold a ridiculous number of units. Now, according to a report, Amazon is eager to repeat the experience—although this time with more confidence in the AI and your Alexa assistant.
The project, which would be codenamed «Transformer»was revealed this week by Reuters. According to the agency, it would be a mobile personalization device designed to synchronize with Alexa and act as an access point to Amazon services throughout the day: Prime Video, Prime Music, Grubhub and Amazon.com, among others. The AI would have a central roleand Alexa would even aspire to “eliminate the need for traditional app stores.”
The same lack as always, now with AI
That's exactly where the greatest skepticism arises. The lack of a decent app store was, precisely, one of the main reasons for the sinking of the original Fire Phone: It depended on the Amazon Appstore, which in 2014 was a wasteland compared to Google Play. Replacing that lack with an AI assistant that “does it all” sounds more like a presentation speech than a real solution.
According to Reuters, Alexa would be a “core feature” of the new phone, although not necessarily the main operating system. Details on price, release date and technical specifications are, for the moment, non-existent, and the report itself warns that the project could be canceled if “the strategy changes or for financial reasons.”
Amazon has been strengthening Alexa with generative artificial intelligence capabilities for years, trying to ensure that it does not fall behind rivals such as Gemini either Siri. A smartphone of its own would be the perfect showcase for that bet — the same one that, with other arguments, they already used in 2014.
