Amazon is taking another swing at smartphones. More than 10 years after the Fire Phone's spectacular failure, the e-commerce giant is developing a new device code-named "Transformer" that puts Alexa front and center, according to Reuters. The phone is being built inside Amazon's experimental ZeroOne group, led by Microsoft veteran J Allard, who previously shaped the Xbox and Zune. But this time around, Amazon's hedging its bets - exploring everything from full-featured smartphones to stripped-down "dumbphones" inspired by minimalist devices.
Amazon is quietly building its way back into the smartphone game, and this time the company's betting everything on Alexa. According to Reuters, the e-commerce and cloud giant is developing a new phone code-named "Transformer" that centers around its AI voice assistant - though Alexa won't necessarily run the whole show as the primary operating system.
The project is brewing inside Amazon's ZeroOne group, a skunkworks operation led by J Allard. That name should ring bells for anyone who remembers Microsoft's hardware glory days. Allard was instrumental in shipping both the Xbox gaming console and the ill-fated Zune music player during his time in Redmond. Now he's tasked with succeeding where Amazon failed spectacularly back in 2014.
The original Fire Phone was Amazon's first and only attempt at cracking the smartphone market. The device launched with 3D gesture controls, a custom Fire OS interface, and tight integration with Amazon's shopping ecosystem. It bombed harder than almost any major tech product launch in recent memory. Amazon eventually took a $170 million write-down on unsold inventory and killed the product within a year. The scars from that failure have kept Amazon out of the smartphone hardware business for over a decade.
