back to article O2 breathes life into Amazon Fire: Mobe to hit Blighty in WEEKS

The Amazon Fire phone has failed to set the world alight, so now it seems that Amazon is looking to O2 for help. There were great hopes for the 3D Fire phone when details leaked ahead of the launch but when it transpired that the 3D was only head tracking that enthusiasm evaporated and it failed to find the traction of the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Even free isn't cheap enough

    The sole object of this thing is to get people to buy stuff through Amazon. I suspect that after a couple of years the price difference between this and an iPhone would be made up by all the useless tat people have bought that otherwise they wouldn't have.

    When is GM going to start selling cars which cost nearly as much as the competition but which project adverts on the windscreen? Because that seems to be the business model.

    1. Anonymoist Cowyard

      Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

      "The sole object of this thing is to get people to buy stuff through Amazon."

      You mean like the Kindle e-Reader?

      The factor you forget, is that 99% of consumers are total idiots that don't understand lock-in. Apple and Amazon rely on this.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

        99% of arrogant nerds are total idiots that don't understand people.

        (or grammar)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Even free isn't cheap enough@ JDX

          "99% of arrogant nerds are total idiots that don't understand people.

          (or grammar)"

          If you're goose-stepping out as a grammar nazi, shouldn't you have avoided a two word sentence that starts and ends with brackets, and looks barren of capitalisation and a full stop?

      2. Waspy

        Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

        I think they do understand lockin but they don't care. I had exactly this argument on an amazon forum, every single person there didn't seem bothered that should amazon either go under or change their policy they would lose up to hundreds of pounds worth of books. Emphatically stating that they would have to buy all these titles again did not seem in the slightest to sway them.

        I actually think that they consider this to be such a remote possibility that it isn't worth worrying about - until one day it actually happens.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

          Do I worry about losing hundreds of Kindle eBooks if Amazon go down the toilet ? No.

          Do I worry about losing hundreds of printed books if the house burns down ? No.

          The latter is more likely.

          1. MrWibble

            Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

            I'd put money on my house being still standing in 20 years. Amazon / Kindle infrastructure? Not so much (Yes Amazon are big now, but then again so was Woolworths, Northern Rock and MySpace)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

          " Emphatically stating that they would have to buy all these titles again did not seem in the slightest to sway them."

          I think that's because you're just wrong. If amazon went under, it'd be trivial to strip the copy protection from kindle formatted ebooks and transfer them to another device.

      3. MooseMonkey

        Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

        When I buy a tree book, I read it, if its good maybe twice, then give it away to my neighbours or a charity.

        That's why I don't care if Amazon crash or take away titles i've bought, the risk is generally the book I'm reading. Add to that I'm cheap, and mainly read the thousands of free books, the risk is even lower.

        Music is different, that's why I buy and back up.

        Not everyone who doesn't think the same way as you is an idiot.

        1. ThomH

          Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

          I'm with MooseMonkey. I own a Kindle. I'm aware that I'm paying near-paperback prices effectively to rent titles and that I've limited my hardware options in the future if I want to retain my current titles. Comparing the size of my house to my appetite for books and considering the wider market for electronic books, the trade-off is worth it. I'm not willing to live my life according to the game of What Would Stallman Do?

          1. John 110

            Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

            @ThomH "What Would Stallman Do?"

            Stallman would probably

            a) not be locked in with a Kindle

            or

            b) use a Kindle for its portability, battery life and readability in bright sunlight and make backups of his books in a format that's not locked in by DRM...

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

            >> limited my hardware options<<

            Harold Mac was right: "We've never had it so good".

            (Applies to most IT today).

            My Kindle eBooks read choice today is:

            Any Browser on Mac or PC or Chromebook

            Kindles, Kindle Fires, iPhones, iPads, iPod touch etc

            However, I won't be adding an Amazon Phone.

            Then there are all the Zinio Mags, PDFs, iBooks, Digital Music etc ec

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

              And not forgetting my native Android Tablets - which I did !

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Happy

        Re: Even free isn't cheap enough

        I'm "thrilled, happy & proud" to be in the 99% category.

  2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Chris Gray 1
    Go

    Won't lose books

    If you have all of your purchased Kindle books on your Kindle (and any other devices you use to read them), you will not lose them if Amazon goes under and disappears. The books on my Kindle are in the flash memory of the Kindle - they do not depend on Amazon to continue to be there. And no, they don't go away if the device doesn't ping Amazon every now and then. My Kindle normally has its WiFi turned off to preserve battery - it has gone for months with no contact.

    So, quit giving out false information on products/systems you don't happen to like.

    1. Waspy

      Re: Won't lose books

      Right, so the reports of occasional disappearing books are false then? Sure, so it's a glitch and your library is cloud protected? Great, go and ask a Hollywood celeb about cloud reliability. And how are you going to get the drm'd books off your kindle in worst case when the unit dies? Good luck with that.

      And no, I do actually use amazon and its kindle apps regularly, I think it's very convenient, but I am aware that it's effectively renting, so any books I want to keep I will either try and source drm free, get a hard copy or...break the drm. This is my point - I think people should be more aware of the ephemeral nature of cloud based drm models.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: Won't lose books

        The books I buy from Amazon aren't "cloud-based", they are on my PC, and on my Kindle. The WiFi on my Kindle is never turned on, so Amazon have no access to them.

        Amazon do have the power to delete books if they have access to a Kindle, and on one well-known occasion they were forced by the courts to put deleted books back, but if they go titsup they won't be there to use that power anyway. There's absolutely no reason for anyone to worry that Amazon going bust will make any Amazon purchases disappear.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Won't lose books

      But if your Kindle dies? You WILL lose them if Amazon no longer exists.

      Personally, I have hundreds of books from Kindle and Kobo and Google Play - wherever I can get them cheapest. I then strip the DRM and keep them on my own machine (backed up) - and I can read them on my Sony Reader no problem. Not quite legit - but I have at least bought the book - I don't see why I shouldn't be able to read it anywhere I like.

      I do not "source them from elsewhere" - mainly because I prefer to support the authors I like. But also because books "sourced from elsewhere" are generally appalling OCRs which are close to unreadable.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: Won't lose books

        But if your Kindle dies? You WILL lose them if Amazon no longer exists.

        Nope, I will not. Every one exists on my PC, which is where I download them to before transferring them to my Kindle. I can transfer them to any replacement device as well.

        If my house burns down I'll lose all my paper books, and some are irreplaceable, but my ebook collection is far less at risk, and certainly not from one supplier failing.

  4. Gannettt

    I hope the UK doesn't get the awful advertising we've had to endure here in the US, featuring a gorky kid with glasses who says 'in my entire 9 years on this planet, I haven't seen anything like it!"

    Also, Amazon's attempt to create a new verb, like 'to Google', in 'firefly: "I'll just firefly that' Wrong!

    Come on Amazon, you're great for bits and bobs, and the occasional book, but this mawkish advertising has to stop!

    And as a Kindle user, I tend to source my books elsewhere and use Calibre to convert them and upload them to my Kindle. I think I have one actual Amazon ebook on it, the rest are from...ahem...other sources.

  5. VeganVegan
    Flame

    Article already obsolete

    The Fire is now only $0.99 with 2 year ATT contract in the US:

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/amazons-fire-phone-falls-to-99-cents-on-a-two-year-contract/

    and it's $449 off-contract (my opinion is that it is still way too expensive for what it does: they should pay me to use the phone, after all, it's main job is to persuade me to buy at Amazon).

    O2 will need to match these prices if it hope to sell very many Fire's.

  6. Anonymous C0ward

    More expensive than an S5? They can go hang. Also, "one-handed gestures", fnar.

  7. pctechxp

    Jeff's dream

    In a future software release the phone will listen to what you talk about and order it automatically using your linked credit card.

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