The online retail giant Amazon is successful in its own way, but not everything comes brilliant as expected. Its Fire Phone was a disaster for the company and has been discontinued, but it didn't stop Amazon to aim for the next big thing in terms of getting into the smartphone market.
Amazon is known to create many services before quickly shutting them down if they don't succeed. Fire Phone is one failure, and Amazon is ready to try another go.
Failing with Fire Phone has given Amazon a lesson. This time, the company is approaching consumers not through hardware advances and new found technologies like it did before. Instead, it's approaching the market through software partnership with Android OEM manufacturers.
Amazon already have deals in place with various carriers and phone makers to include their own shopping and Kindle app. By having its own apps preloaded, Amazon shares them the revenue it makes from users. While that seems not enough, Amazon aims to preload other of its apps to replace Google's services with its own at factory level, not anymore complimenting them.
So beside the dozens of apps the company have to offer, it wants to make various Google's apps to be replaced to benefit its own.
Amazon's approach differs from the iPhones or any other highend flagship devices. iPhones are massive source for income for Apple and ad-based businesses as well as online store. But Amazon is not targeting that or any other business model that most companies are glued into. Amazon is eyeing on emerging markets that would be valuable if the prime replacement deal can be secured.
Fire Phone was regarded as the first 3D perspective in smartphones. As Amazon calls it, the device uses "Dynamic Perspective" that feature various viewing experience depending upon perspective, as well as how the user holds and moves the phone. With the new technology, the device haven't see any great improvement in market receptions.
The company did however tried to allow users to update the Fire Phone to KitKat 4.4 in May 2015 but the results weren't well received either.
Deeper Integration = More Preminent Position
Android is nevertheless the most popular mobile operating system thanks to its ability to implement various customizations, open-source flexibility, and all supported by the search and tech giant Google. While Google's apps should be the most integrated services inside Android devices, the company is already making a prominent move in making its brand available to almost any smartphones available on the wild.
Amazon wants at least a bit of the pie the Google is having. Amazon wants to have better mobile footprint than it has now.
If Amazon can have a deeper integration into Android operating system at factory, it can make itself more highly available - especially in the shopping section and e-commerce. Amazon apps pre-installed by factory will enable Amazon to deliver what it wants right from the start - when an Android device is unboxed - as long as people won't consider them bloatware.
However, Google's position on Android is above the fold. Mobile phone makers are still beholden to Google's rules for what can and cannot preload on their devices. If one manufacturer wants to partner with Amazon while keeping Android supported by Google, they'll need to have a workaround for the situation.
While having Amazon's app to be preloaded replacing Google's, from an end-user’s perspective, devices wouldn't have access to Google's core services, such as Gmail, Maps, and more. While some Google apps can be replaced by many other third-party apps, Google Play Store is not one of them.
The Fire Phone failed because it was focusing more on selling Amazon's services that actually helping its users. So if any partnership should be made, any strategy that is too obvious like that would certainly repel users. This could be harmful, especially when considering Amazon is entering a world dominated by Android and iOS devices.
Amazon will have a lot of persuading to do.