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Long live the Amazon Fire Phone! OK, actually we couldn’t care less if its record was completely stricken from the consumer electronics history books.
And that’s probably what Amazon hopes will happen, too. The company has proudly confirmed that they no longer have any Amazon Fire Phone units in inventory. Amazon says the last of their stock was depleted as of the end of August 2015, which explains why it has yet to return to their website as in-stock. This also likely means AT&T won’t be getting more units, though we’re sure they wouldn’t have asked for any at this point.
The Amazon Fire Phone was an exciting idea, but the execution was questionable. You had a few different problems to start:
- Buried beneath a pile of gimmicks was a decidedly average phone.
- It was only available on AT&T.
- It didn’t have Google Play Services or the Google Play Store. That’s usually what comes with buying an Amazon device, but it’s worth noting anyway.
- It was over-costed.
- Let’s just stop sugarcoating: the Amazon Fire Phone sucked.
Will they ever try again? It’s tough to say. Amazon likes devices and takes pride in their growing line of consumer electronics, but no one really needs an Amazon phone. Want to read? There’s a Kindle app in Google Play. Want to shop? There’s an Amazon shopping app in Google Play. Want to do nearly anything else through Amazon? There’s probably an app for it in Google Play.
So that’s what Amazon should do: focus on their software, services and shopping, and leave the phones to the big boys who have been doing it for years. We loved the idea, but the lesson ultimately learned in this episode is that you can’t be everything to everybody. Amazon is still great on all its other merits — and trust me when I say there are a lot of those good merits — but we really don’t need another Amazon phone.
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