There Aren’t a Lot of Reasons to Get Excited About a New Amazon Smartphone | WIRED

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more than a decade after bailing on the dismal Fire Phone, Amazon is giving the smartphone a second try. Reuters reports that Amazon's Devices and Services unit is working on a smartphone—dubbed Transformer—with Amazon's Alexa+ AI assistant and shopping as a major focus of the experience.

Details are slim. It's unclear what this smartphone would cost, how much Amazon is spending to develop Transformer, and what operating system it will run. There's no word on when it will launch, and there's still also a chance the project could be scrapped altogether. When reached by WIRED, an Amazon spokesperson said the company doesn't comment on rumors and speculation.

Amazon famously launched the Fire Phone in 2014, but it was discontinued shortly after due to a limited app ecosystem and terrible sales. Alongside a gimmicky 3D display, it had an app called Firefly that allowed you to buy things (from Amazon.com, naturally) by pointing the camera at an object.

The company is rumored to launch a Fire tablet this year that runs Google's Android operating system for the first time instead of Amazon's homegrown Fire OS, which notably lacks native access to Google's popular Play Store. Such a move suggests this new smartphone could run Android; however, the Reuters report indicates that Transformer might have an AI interface that would “eliminate the need for traditional app stores.”

Generative UI

This isn't the first talk about a new kind of operating system or a generative user interface. At Mobile World Congress 2024, T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, showed off a concept phone that generated an interface as you spoke to it rather than relying on traditional apps. Nothing CEO Carl Pei told WIRED last year that he believes future smartphones will have one app, “that will be the OS.”

AI companies are honing their chatbots' agentic skills—where they can complete tasks on your behalf—bringing us one step closer to this reality. Google recently debuted Task Automation in its Gemini assistant on Samsung and Pixel phones, allowing users to ask the bot to order an Uber or food from apps like DoorDash. OpenAI is working with ex-Apple designer Jony Ive on new AI-powered devices designed to become smarter and more powerful collaborators than our smartphones, but details are scant on what these gadgets could look like.

Reuters says Amazon's Transformer phone might be inspired by the Light Phone, a feature phone made by a Brooklyn company with some smart features designed to help people get away from daily smartphone distractions. While Amazon's device may not focus on digital detoxing, if Transformer were treated as a secondary device, it could find more pull in the hard-to-crack US smartphone market dominated by Samsung and Apple.

“What can they bring to end users that is not already available from the likes of Apple or Samsung? That's where I'm struggling to understand the rationale behind this project,” says Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of data and analytics at research group IDC. “If 10 years ago, a phone did not make any sense and it was obvious that it would not succeed, today is even worse.”

Jeronimo pointed out that even if Amazon may have started working on Transformer a year or so ago, the current economic environment would make the device much more costly than initially intended due to the memory crisis, supply-chain issues caused by the Iran war, and tariffs.

Meanwhile, nearly every major smartphone maker has its own AI capabilities that will likely be similar to what Amazon can offer. (Not to mention the fact that those other companies likely won't shove Amazon services and shopping down your throat.)

“If it's a phone, it's dead on arrival,” Jeronimo says. “From a hardware perspective, it will be completely impossible to compete against Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi. From a software perspective, they may have an opportunity, but that opportunity is very short-term, because Apple, Samsung, and Android in general are moving extremely fast."

If Alexa+ is the driving force behind Transformer, Jeronimo thinks the device could be a vehicle to explore the AI chatbot on a companion device that's always on your person. Alexa has largely lived inside fixed devices in the home; while you can install Alexa+ on your smartphone today, Amazon doesn't have much control over the experience. It can't be made the default assistant on iPhones, for example.

A phone-like device or wearable would grant Amazon that power, as well as more control over your data. Amazon recently bought Bee AI, an always-listening wearable that summarizes your conversations throughout the day, and even crafts to-do lists unprompted. Asked if Bee's tech will be integrated with Alexa, Bee cofounder Maria de Lourdes Zollo—who now works at Amazon—t