“Amazon is working with HTC to develop a range of smartphones as the e-commerce company steps up efforts to compete with Apple and Google, according to people familiar with the project,” Tim Bradshaw, Sarah Mishkin, and Barney Jopson report for The Financial Times. “One of the three devices discussed by the two companies is at an advanced stage of development, according to one person, but another warned that the timeline for launch has been changed before and Amazon may yet decide not to release the device.”
“The device is unlikely to launch this year but may launch in 2014 if Amazon decides to proceed with the project,” Bradshaw, Mishkin, and Jopson report. “By tapping HTC to help design the phones, Amazon is acting much like Google, which has partnered with brands such as Asus and LG to develop its own Nexus line of tablets and phones.”
Bradshaw, Mishkin, and Jopson report, “This is not the first time that HTC has tried to boost its profile and sales by partnering with a better-known internet brand. This year, it brought out the HTC First, the so-called Facebook Phone, but the relatively cheap hardware and deep embedding of the social network in the phone’s software did not prove a big seller.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The Facebook Phone “did not prove a big seller.” That’s the understatement of the month, so far.
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