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WSJ: Amazon's smartphone to be AT&T exclusive

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Vyse The Legend

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http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/17/5817066/amazon-smartphone-att-exclusive-rumor

Amazon's upcoming smartphone will be exclusive to AT&T, according to The Wall Street Journal. The e-commerce giant is widely expected to introduce its first ever smartphone at a media event tomorrow, building on its Kindle Fire line of Android tablets. Amazon already has a relationship with AT&T; the carrier provides wireless service to its tablets and e-readers, but securing an exclusive deal with Amazon for its smartphone would be a major extension of that partnership. It's unclear whether Amazon will also offer the smartphone through its online store SIM-free or if it will truly be limited to AT&T customers, but regardless, the majority of potential buyers are unlikely to buy a phone without a contract.
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This is such a terrible idea, with a proven history of consistently being one. Nokia and the Moto X both tried this tactic to almost disastrous results. Why Amazon thinks they will fare any better is a complete mystery?

Being on all carriers out of the gate is the only way for a brand-new device to gain any traction in this day and age.
 
Was the Moto X on the front page of one of the biggest websites in the world every damn day, especially during Holiday season? Well, I don't think this is the greatest idea, Amazon has certain advantages other manufacturers didn't.
 
JesseEwiak said:
Was the Moto X on the front page of one of the biggest websites in the world every damn day, especially during Holiday season? Well, I don't think this is the greatest idea, Amazon has certain advantages other manufacturers didn't.
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The problem is that people aren't going to switch carriers for this thing, no matter how awesome it turns out. It just isn't going to happen in any significant amount. So, it doesn't matter if Amazon can advertise the hell out of it via their homepage, if a majority of the people seeing the ad don't have AT&T.
 
I am sure this will still be sold via Amazon

Problem for Amazon is that unlike Tablets, most consumers still buy their phones via the service provider
 
WedgeX said:
I mean, it's not like Apple flourished with the iPhone or anything.
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Hopefully, you're joking.

If not, I said 'this day and age', and no one has been able to replicate what Apple did -- and we have absolutely no reason whatsoever to think it even can be done again.

Even the Galaxy line didn't start to become successful until they launched the same phone on all four carriers on day 1.
 
why do they say nobody will buy a phone without a contract? is it really that uncommon in the US? Did google not do decent business selling the Nexus sim-free?
 
mrklaw said:
why do they say nobody will buy a phone without a contract? is it really that uncommon in the US? Did google not do decent business selling the Nexus sim-free?
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The Nexus line sells moderately well, as far as we know. There are no concrete numbers, but the estimates place it in the low millions, which is a far cry from the herculean numbers Samsung and Apple push with their flagships.
 
WedgeX said:
I mean, it's not like Apple flourished with the iPhone or anything.
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Apple has such strong brand loyalty that Apple users were willing to jump ship to any provider just to get access. The iPhone could have gone exclusive to Cricket, and then Cricket would have been one of the biggest providers around (and iPhone users would probably be singing the praises of regional coverage and pre-paid mobile contracts, too).

Amazon (nobody, really) has the type of brand loyalty that Apple has. Exclusivity will only harm, not help Amazon as a result.
 
Wow, Amazon tends to be one of the more saavy businesses out there, so this is a bit of a surprise. Maybe they're going with a slow start approach? Maybe they're thinking they're going to take 2-3 years to build up momentum first and so it doesn't really matter if the first year is a little slow in exchange for AT&T giving them a money hat and a ton of free marketing.
 
This seems crazy. I can't see them launching without a (more expensive, of course) unlocked option.

It seems much more likely that Amazon wasn't super interested in heavily marketing the device via expensive traditional channels, and as a result some carriers (who have their own conflicts of interest w/ Amazon already) weren't interested in supporting the device unless consumer demand was there.
 
The only way this works is if Amazon re-sells AT&T service and makes their own plans. I can see them offering up a $99 a month "Prime" service that covers shipping, movies, music, and celluar usage.
 
Yup that's a stupid idea. Course I really have no interest in the phone anyway. Amazon just hasn't proven to me that they can really make something that is as good and smooth as the big boys. The kindle Fire is a good ebook reader but app wise it's not that great and even then it's not as fast and smooth as the others. I haven't seen any interest in their set top box thing.

But you know who knows they could prove me wrong. I will admit though if they could work a deal to get a killer data plan for their services I'd certainly be interested in that and keeping prime. Imagine like a free or extremely reduced rate for the data for all Amazon services like Prime streaming, etc
 
RoadDogg said:
The only way this works is if Amazon re-sells AT&T service and makes their own plans. I can see them offering up a $99 a month "Prime" service that covers shipping, movies, music, and celluar usage.
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99$ a year and count me in~!

Even though I already have free service through FreedomPop :p
 
Amazon wholesales bandwidth from AT&T so this isn't surprising assuming they were going to do some interesting data plan options.
 
The HTC First also tried this tactic as well, and it failed even though it lived on as a unofficial nexus device once the discounts started to pile up. It could be interesting to see what happens with the device.
 
I think companies do this because they want to slowly scale up (Moto X was built in USA and that was probably a supply issue at first).

also, the most popular phone EVER CREATED started like this. Yea the industry is 100% different now, but saying it's always a bad idea is not correct.
 
I don't know what Amazon's plan is; become the cheapest """name brand""" option?

Then, hope people buy more stuff through store integration?
 
All comes down to price for me with my prime membership. I'm not an Android fan but if its cheap I'll buy on to try out day one.
 
Guevara said:
I don't know what Amazon's plan is; become the cheapest """name brand""" option?

Then, hope people buy more stuff through store integration?
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Kind of. Basically as long as Google and Apple make the rules on mobile devices Amazon is going to get shut out or need to pay the 30% tax. Very few people will go out of their way to change the defaults. It's bad business for a company like Amazon so they need to take control of their hardware situation by providing interesting products. Since they are most interested in selling digital wares, they can get greater adoption by being cheaper.

hwalker84 said:
All comes down to price for me with my prime membership. I'm not an Android fan but if its cheap I'll buy on to try out day one.
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It's Android in the sense it shares the API layer and you could potentially side-load the same apps. From a pure consumer level FireOS is not Android and looks nothing like it, and really this phone is going to have a crazy custom interface based on the head-tracking and that will probably be a bigger expectation for apps as well.
 
Could just be that they do not have the design or the capacity to make a CDMA version. Already cutting off half the carrier, it is probably more advantageous to give up T-Mobile smaller base for AT&T support.
 
The whole idea of this seems strange to me. Surely this product is going to be for driving media consumption from Amazon marketplaces, so what kind of data plan are they offering? They don't have any leverage to negotiate anything special...
 
AstroNut325 said:
Owned a Kindle Fire HD for 3 days. Couldn't stand the lag and terrible UI. Returned it and got an iPad.
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Well, the 8.9" HD was fine, the HDX is a beast. Haven't heard anything about lag on the Fire TV either. The interface, well, we'll see, it's going to be different than anything previously that's for sure.
 
Futureman said:
I think companies do this because they want to slowly scale up (Moto X was built in USA and that was probably a supply issue at first).

also, the most popular phone EVER CREATED started like this. Yea the industry is 100% different now, but saying it's always a bad idea is not correct.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone said it was always a bad idea, but the world is different now. And the iPhone is one of the only phones to find success by being carrier exclusive. The original Droid is maybe the only other one, and that's literally only because Verizon didn't have the iPhone.
 
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