Introducing Fire, the First Smartphone Designed by Amazon

 

SEATTLE, June 18, 2014 (Korea Bizwire)–Amazon today unveiled Fire, the first smartphone designed  by Amazon. Fire is the only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective and  Firefly, two new breakthrough technologies that allow you to see and  interact with the world through a whole new lens. Dynamic Perspective  uses a new sensor system to respond to the way you hold, view, and move  Fire, enabling experiences not possible on other smartphones. Firefly  quickly recognizes things in the real world—web and email  addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, movies, music, and millions  of products, and lets you take action in seconds—all with the  simple press of the Firefly button. See what people are already saying  about Fire at www.amazon.com/Fire-Phone-Customers.

“Fire Phone puts everything you love about Amazon in the palm of your  hand—instant access to Amazon’s vast content ecosystem and exclusive  features like the Mayday button, ASAP, Second Screen, X-Ray, free  unlimited photo storage, and more,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder  and CEO. “The Firefly button lets you identify printed web and email  addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, artwork, and over 100  million items, including songs, movies, TV shows, and products—and take  action in seconds. We invented a new sensor system called Dynamic  Perspective that recognizes where a user’s head is relative to the  device—we use it to offer customers a more immersive experience,  one-handed navigation, and gestures that actually work. And this is only  the beginning—the most powerful inventions are the ones that empower  others to unleash their creativity—that’s why today we are launching the  Dynamic Perspective SDK and the Firefly SDK—we can’t wait to see how  developers surprise us.”

Dynamic Perspective—Immersive Smartphone Experience

Dynamic Perspective uses four ultra-low power specialized cameras and  four infrared LEDs built into the front face of Fire, a dedicated custom  processor, sophisticated real-time computer vision algorithms, and a new  high-performing and power-efficient graphics rendering engine. Dynamic  Perspective features include:

• One-handed gestures: Auto-scroll, tilt, swivel and peek for  quicker, easier navigation and a better media and entertainment  experience. For example, with auto-scroll, customers can read a long  web page or a book without ever having to touch the screen; tilt in  Amazon Music shows song lyrics; swivel instantly reveals quick  actions; peek in Maps shows layered information like Yelp ratings and  reviews.
• Immersive apps and games: Dynamic Perspective enables a new  class of apps and games that are more immersive, and make it quicker  and easier for the user to access information. For example, peek to  instantly see close-up front and back views of a dress in the new  Amazon Shopping app for Fire. In games like Lili, take on the  character’s viewpoint and move your head to look around corners,  obstacles, and other objects.
• Enhanced Carousel: Stay productive with real-time updates and  take action right from the home screen—triage email, find recent  photos, access most visited websites, return missed calls, view  appointments, and more. Developers can customize the contents of their  dynamic app and how it responds to user actions. For example, Zillow’s  app in the carousel shows property information based on the location,  so customers can access search results on nearby homes from the  carousel without having to launch the Zillow app. USA TODAY shows  headlines most relevant to customer’s interest—someone who frequents  football in the Sports section will see those related headlines appear  in the carousel.

Starting today, Amazon is introducing the Dynamic Perspective SDK that  enables developers to build new experiences with this groundbreaking  technology. Learn more about the SDK at http://developer.amazon.com/firephone.

Firefly Technology–Illuminate Your World

Firefly combines Amazon’s deep catalog of physical and digital content  with multiple image, text and audio recognition technologies to quickly  identify web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, plus  over 100 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs, and  products. Simply press and hold the dedicated Firefly button to discover  helpful information and take action in seconds.

• Printed phone numbers, email, web addresses, QR, and bar codes: Firefly  identifies printed text on signs, posters, magazines and  business cards—make a call, send an email, save as a contact, or go to  the website without typing out long URLs or email addresses.
• 245,000 movies and TV episodes, and 160 live TV channels:  Firefly recognizes movies and TV episodes, and uses IMDb for X-Ray to  show actors, plot synopses, and related content—add titles to Watch  List or download and start watching immediately.
• 35 million songs: Firefly recognizes music and uses Amazon  Music’s rich catalog to show information about the artist—play more  songs, add them to your Wish List, or download instantly to your Fire.  Developers, such as iHeartRadio and StubHub, used the SDK to build  Firefly-enabled apps, so customers can create a new radio station  based on the song or find concert tickets for the artist.
• 70 million products, including household items, books, DVDs, CDs,  video games, and more: Access product details, add items to your  Wish List, or order on Amazon.com.

The Firefly SDK is available starting today so developers can invent new  ways to use this advanced technology. Later this year, Firefly will  include artwork recognition, foreign language translation, and wine  label recognition powered by Vivino. Learn more about the SDK at http://developer.amazon.com/firephone.

Amazon Exclusive Features and Vast Digital Ecosystem—All Deeply  Integrated

Fire seamlessly integrates Amazon’s vast digital ecosystem for instant  access to over 33 million songs, apps, games, movies, TV shows, books,  audiobooks, and magazines, including thousands of exclusives. Plus,  Prime members get unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and  TV episodes at no additional cost with Prime Instant Video, over 500,000  books to borrow with the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and the all-new  Prime Music—unlimited streaming and download of more than a million  songs and hundreds of expert-programmed playlists—all at no additional  cost.

Fire deeply integrates Amazon exclusive services:

• Mayday is now available over 3G and 4G, in addition to  Wi-Fi—simply hit the Mayday button in quick actions and an Amazon  expert will appear via live video to co-pilot you through any feature  on the device. Amazon experts are able to draw on the screen, talk you  through how to do a task, or do it for you—whatever works best. Mayday  is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it’s free. Amazon’s response  time goal for Mayday is 15 seconds or less—since launch, the average  response time has been 9.75 seconds.
• ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) predicts which movies  and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and prepares them for instant  playback before you even hit play.
• X-Ray helps you get more from books, music, movies, and TV  shows. Explore the bones of a book, including characters, ideas and  background with a single tap on the screen; bring the power of IMDb  right to Fire for trivia on movies and TV shows; plus, with X-Ray for  Music, see synchronized lyrics display while you listen to your  favorite song.
• Second Screen lets you fling TV shows and movies from Fire  phone to your Fire TV, PlayStation or any other Miracast-enabled  device. Second Screen turns your TV into the primary screen and frees  up Fire phone to provide playback controls and a customized display  for X-Ray, all without leaving the TV show or movie you’re watching.
• Free unlimited cloud storage of photos taken with Fire, automatically  backed-up wirelessly and available across Amazon devices and Cloud  Drive apps so you have access anywhere.

Beautiful Industrial Design & Powerful Hardware

Built using premium materials, including Gorilla Glass 3 for the rear  and front, aluminum buttons, stainless steel details and a rubberized  polyurethane grip area, Fire is optimized for beauty, hand comfort and  powerful performance:

• Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.2 GHz processor and 2GB RAM for  excellent fluidity and image rendering.
• 4.7-inch HD display with an ambient light sensor and Dynamic  Image Contrast that delivers better outdoor viewing.
• Global LTE and connectivity with nine bands of LTE, four  bands of GSM, five bands of UMTS for better voice coverage and faster  data speeds, 802.11ac support, Wi-Fi channel bonding, NFC, and  Bluetooth.
• Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus for a virtual  surround sound experience.
• Advanced imaging system with custom-tuned 13MP  rear-facing camera with backside illumination, LED flash, 5-element f/2.0  lens, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and high dynamic range (HDR)  capabilities for beautiful, crisp photos, even in low-light  conditions. Fire also includes a 2.1MP front-facing camera. Both front  and rear-facing cameras record smooth 1080p HD videos.
• Reliable backup and restore leveraging the experience and  operational excellence of Amazon Web Services and its cloud  technology. Fire customers can automatically back up device settings,  notes, bookmarks, messages, and installed applications—no need to  manually configure or connect to a computer.

Availability & Exclusive Network Partner

Fire ships on July 25 and is available exclusively on AT&T—the nation’s  most reliable 4G LTE network. Starting today, customers can pre-order  Fire at www.amazon.com/Fire-Phone,  www.att.com  and in AT&T retail locations nationwide. Fire with 32GB is available for  $199 with a two-year contract—that’s an extra 16GB of memory for the  same price as many other premium smartphones—or zero money down for as  little as $27.09 a month from AT&T on Next 18. Fire is also available  with 64GB for $299 with a two-year contract or starting at $31.25/month  from AT&T on Next 18.

Limited Time, Introductory Offer

Starting today, customers can take advantage of an introductory, limited  time offer—buy Fire and get 12 months of Amazon Prime included—FREE  Two-Day Shipping on millions of items, unlimited streaming of movies and  TV shows with Prime Instant Video, unlimited, ad-free streaming and  downloading of over a million songs and hundreds of playlists, and over  500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.  Existing Prime members get an additional 12 months added to their  account.

About Amazon.com

Amazon opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided  by three principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus,  passion for invention, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click  shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon,  AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, and  Fire TV are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.

Source: Amazon.com (via BusinessWire)