Amazon’s Fire Phone, the smartphone CEO and Founder Jeff Bezos has been working on for four years, is finally out in the open and ready to connect consumers with Amazon’s growing panoply of retail products and services.
The all-black, slab-like Fire Phone is both more interesting technology-wise than we expected and somewhat less innovative than we thought it would be. However one thing’s crystal clear: This is a phone designed for shoppers, wherever they are and whenever they want to shop.
As I noted before the event, the Fire Phone is not about phone calls. While exclusive carrier AT&T did take the stage to tout the phone and partnership with Amazon, Bezos never talked about call quality or even how some of the whiz-bang features might impact communication. That’s because they really don’t.
I’m not saying this isn’t a good phone. It might be. It has a big 4.7-inch screen, ample power (a quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM), a 13 MP camera and a sharp Kindle Fire HDX-esque interface. I think that, on a feature-for-feature basis, it could hold its own against the iPhone 5C (if not the 5S) and the Samsung Galaxy S4 (and maybe S5). The unlimited cloud storage for photos is canny, though I suspect it’s a wheel-greasing move to make the phone more attractive to Amazon’s core audience: everyday consumers.
But it’s the dedicated Firefly button that’s the real star of the show here. You might as well call it Amazon Fire Phone’s dedicated Shopping Button. Its job is simple, yet critically important. The button ties to the phone’s camera and lets you “scan†almost any object and get instant pricing and availability information through, naturally, Amazon’s retail engine.
The technology is not new.
Four years ago, Google introduced virtually the same thing. It was called, somewhat less opaquely, Google Shopper. It could, like many other shopping apps, scan bar codes, but the neatest trick was its ability to scan objects and find matches. It worked primarily with books, CDs and DVD covers.
Amazon’s FireFly purports to work with anything. It can identify movies and TV shows (down to the scene) by scanning the audio, which should assist in both beating family in the "What is this movie, again?" game and, obviously, helping you buy that same movie. Bezos even showed off the ability to identify food, supposedly for nutrition information, but the next obvious step is to show you how much that bag of Cheetos costs on Amazon.
To be clear, the database has roughly 70 million objects and that’s not everything. I can guarantee that people will find gaps almost immediately and, as one person I spoke to noted, it’s not clear how it will handle multiple objects in the frame: a shirt, jacket and tie for example.
Even with the aforementioned gaps, just think for a moment about what Amazon is doing here: putting its own shopping assistant in your hand 24/7 â€" not one hidden behind an app or a third-party partner service, but one that sits in hardware and is as close as your thumb.
Shop 'til you drop
The fact that Prime comes for free with this phone (one year, limited time offer) is also more about shopping than it is about enjoying Amazon Prime video. Prime represents the second piece of the Firefly puzzle. Find something you like, scan it, find a better price on Amazon and order it with free, 2-day shipping (courtesy of Prime), right there on the spot.
The phone even has built-in Mayday, the customer service feature that launched on Amazon’s HDX tablets. It’s about customer service right now, but why wouldn’t you be able to ask a Mayday rep a shopping question, if you were so inclined?
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos describes the Firefly button on the Fire Phone at an event in Seattle on June 18, 2014.
Image: Mashable, Christina Ascani
Firefly is all about intent to buy, which can hit you at any time. In the store? Of course. Imagine window shopping, pausing briefly to Firefly a dress, bag, box of cornflakes and that new lawnmower. If you find the product and know that you can complete the purchase right while you’re standing in the store, why wouldn’t you? It’s a lot easier than trying to log into Amazon’s web site from your phone and even easier than using its iOS or android app.
That shopping impulse can hit you outside the store, as well. In someone else’s living room, for example. You notice your friend’s awesome patio set. Instead of even asking your friend where they got it or what they paid, you just Firefly it. It could be on the way to your home before you finish dessert.
Firefly may have more pedestrian uses as well. Running low on toothpaste? Firefly it and get a reasonably priced supply sent to you before you go to bed.
As for the other mind-bending feature, Dynamic Perspective, it doesn't fit so neatly in the shopping narrative. To my surprise, it is entirely forward-facing: the multiple stereoscopic and infrared cameras on the front read your face and use that information to create realistic-looking 3D imagery on the screen. There’s no 3D image ingestion. Firefly doesn’t need. It.
Look at it this way, the Firefly button is Amazon’s most direct connection to your wallet. No other device, not the Kindle ereader, the Kindle Fire HDX Tablet, or the Amazon Fire TV set-top box offer as direct and ubiquitous connection. You phone is your constant companion. Fire Phone with Firefly fills a critical gap for Amazon and unlike other mobile devices which encourage engagement and distraction, this one will encourage shopping at Amazon. At least that's how I see it.
Is it a solution without a problem?
"Let’s assume that the phone is adopted," which is a big assumption according to Forrester Retail Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, "this is not how people shop or are inspired to buy. If you see something you like, you want to learn more about it, and are not necessarily in the market to buy it right away."
Amazon, noted Mulpuru, does not need to reduce mobile shopping steps down from three steps to two. It already owns a sizeable chunk of the multi-billion dollar "m-commerce" market. She also noted that while there is clearly a "show-rooming" aspect to the phone, where people shop in physical store, but use their phones to compare prices, there is no "friction" in that process for Amazon to solve.
She was, however, willing to give me one point. "Is it a defensive play?" she pondered. With a phone, Amazon may not have to worry about the rise of other mobile shopping platforms or retail outlets with solid mobile stores and "there's certainly no risk of being usurped by Apple and Google," said Mulpuru. On the other hand, she thinks the trade-offs for that kind of defense could be steep: Upgrading and protecting that phone will be a "beast to feed."
While Mulpuru has her doubts, I'm convinced mobile shopping (at home, on the road, in stores, at friend's houses) is Amazon's whole reason for the Fire Phone. I agree, though, that adoption is a huge hurdle and see, perhaps, one other significant risk.
Amazon’s blatant play for your shopping dollars could turn off some potential customers. Perhaps they don’t like shopping with their phone and do not appreciate on-the-fly price comparisons. Maybe they think their phone is about entertainment and, especially, communicating. Oh, who am I kidding? People love to shop through their mobile devices. Amazon fans, at least, may embrace the Fire Shopping Phone.
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