Reuters article
Exclusive: Amazon plans smartphone comeback more than a decade after Fire Phone flop
https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-plans-smartphone-comeback-more-than-decade-after-fire-phone-flop-2026-03-20/
Part of the content is translated by GPT-5.4 Thinking.
In 2014, Amazon launched its first smartphone to compete with Apple and Samsung. However, the Fire Phone, which was personally overseen by founder Jeff Bezos, was discontinued after a little over a year and remained one of Amazon's most notable failures. Now, Amazon is restarting development on a new smartphone.
The new project, known internally as Transformer, is being developed in Amazon's Devices & Services division, according to four people familiar with the matter. They said the phone would be treated as a mobile personalization device that could integrate with Alexa, Amazon's home voice assistant, and act as a constant channel connecting Amazon customers.
This plan is the latest addition to Bezos' long-held vision: to commercialize a universal voice-based computing secretary, similar to the voice-controlled computers in the sci-fi series Star Trek. This has been an effort he has pursued for several years.
Bezos envisioned a smartphone centered around shopping and believed it could compete with Apple by offering delivery convenience and discount benefits through Prime membership. In the process, Amazon would be able to gather vast amounts of information by combining user data obtainable only through mobile phones, including purchase history and content preferences.
[The rest of the content is omitted]
