Amazon Is Making An Alexa Phone

Over 10 years aft shelving nan Fire Phone, Amazon is reportedly readying to motorboat different smartphone, this clip focused connected Alexa. According to Reuters, nan phone, which is code-named “Transformer,” will halfway astir Amazon’s AI assistant, but Alexa won’t “necessarily beryllium nan superior operating strategy of nan phone.”

“Transformer” is presently successful improvement successful Amazon’s ZeroOne group, led by J Allard, who antecedently worked connected nan Zune and Xbox astatine Microsoft. Allard’s squad has reportedly explored some smartphone and “dumbphone” designs, taking inspiration from nan $700 minimalist Light Phone, which features a black-and-white show and lacks an app store.

App readiness was a awesome situation for nan original Fire Phone, and thing Amazon whitethorn effort to debar wholly this clip around. According to group acquainted pinch nan caller phone, “integrating artificial intelligence capabilities into nan device” has been a cardinal focus, which could mean “Transformer” whitethorn trust connected mini apps for illustration those disposable successful ChatGPT, alternatively than a fully-fledged app store.

There is nary timeline yet for erstwhile Amazon will merchandise “Transformer,” if ever, aliases really overmuch it could cost. The original Fire Phone launched astatine $199, but it grounded to drawback connected and Amazon scrapped it a twelvemonth aft its release. Amazon has been pushing to support up pinch its rivals successful AI complete caller years, which whitethorn beryllium driving it to reignite its smartphone ambitions. However, it whitethorn still look an uphill conflict winning complete users connected its revamped type of Alexa — users posted complaints online aft getting automatically upgraded to nan LLM-powered Alexa Plus earlier this year, saying it was “flooded pinch ads” and took longer to respond to queries.