"David Pierce, Allison Johnson, and Sean O'Kane discuss how the success of the Kindle led to Amazon's expanded hardware plans, the brewing fight with Apple over app store policies, the ways in which Bezos himself directed the product, and the astonishing speed with which the thing flopped. Only a few months after it launched, the Fire Phone could be had for less than a buck. People still didn't want it."
"The Fire Phone shipped in 2014 with a feature list a mile long. The screen had a 3D effect! There were, like, 400 cameras! There was a whole home screen filled with something called "delighters!" But the Fire Phone was, above all, a way to buy things on Amazon. That was what Bezos wanted, after all. It's just not what users wanted."
Amazon moved from Kindle success into an aggressive hardware strategy and built the Fire Phone under Jeff Bezos's direction. The device launched in 2014 with many novel features, including a faux 3D screen effect, numerous cameras, and a home screen feature labeled "delighters." The phone prioritized enabling purchases on Amazon over meeting user preferences. Internal and external conflicts included a brewing fight with Apple over app store policies. The product flopped rapidly, with heavy discounts within months of launch, demonstrating that ambitious feature lists and company goals did not translate into consumer demand.
Read at The Verge
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