“Rumors have been circulating for quite a while about Amazon doing a smartphone,” Jim Lynch writes for Eye On Linux. “Thanks to BGR we’ve finally gotten a look at what Amazon’s smartphone looks like, and it looks a lot like… well… an iPhone.”
“This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone,” Lynch writes, “the iPhone has been enormously successful so it’s no shocker that Amazon might be… er… inspired by it.”
In terms of size, we’re told that the phone is a bit large but is reasonably comfortable to use with one hand. Amazon’s unique gesture controls were designed in part to make one-handed operation of a large phone as easy as possible, and one source tells us the phone definitely succeeds in that regard. Our sources tell us the device will feature specs including a 4.7-inch display with 720p HD resolution, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM, six individual camera modules and a highly customized version of Google’s Android operating system similar to the one seen on Amazon’s various Kindle Fire tablets. – BGR
“Amazon recently released the Fire TV set top box, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Apple TV. That plus the new smartphone might be considered two strikes against Amazon by Apple’s lawyers,” Lynch writes. “It makes me wonder if there will be some sort of legal tipping point where Apple decides that it has enough of a case to finally go after Amazon.”
Read more in the full article here.
Lol, what a waste of an opportunity by amazon, instead of being creative and original, they chose the path of shameless copying 😪😡
The funny thing is it looks like a cross between an iPhone and a Galaxy…
Well… with the 6 coming out… these phones don’t matter…
In fact, if anything… Huawei is the Android player that Samsung, HTC, Sony, LG has to really worry about… as Apple customers in general stick with Apple…
It’s not a clone of and iPhone. It’s a clone of a Samsung, which is a clone of an iPhone. Get it strait. It’s a second generation clone. Should Apple sue? I suppose, but since Amazon makes no profit, it’s no better than suing Google…
That sucks.
The front is clone of iPhone, but the back is distinguishable..
From the tiles on the Aphone I believe Microsoft should sue.
I have another idea… Apple sues Google’s shareholders. Would that work?
No, because having Android around (as the only other viable mobile computing platform) helps Apple more than hurts Apple. It only hurts Apple when a particular direct competitor (such as Samsung) becomes too blatant (and successful) at using Android to rip off Apple’s IP. That is when Apple’s lawyers go into action. That is why Apple has not taken direct legal action against Google over Android.
So, if this product is deemed too successful at copying an iPhone, Apple takes legal action. If it’s a flop and/or Amazon sufficiently differentiates their product from an iPhone, Apple does not take legal action.
Well the OS does look significantly different. Maybe that’s a working solution to keep them out of court.
Eeew – looks like an iPhone with Windows tiles.
Double eeew!
Yet another fork in the Android road. In all likelihood, this one will splinter it in a significant way, since Amazon’s marketing machinery has plenty of muscle to peddle their cheap hardware on their unsuspecting masses.
So you’re saying it’s a significantly different OS than they use for their Kindles? Hardly a fork otherwise.
So much for the idea that by taking Samsung to court Apple would discourage others from stealing their ideas. All that has happened is that Samsung has shown how profitable it is to copy.
Hey, nice screws on the bottom. haha
As much as I hate to say it, most vehicle steering wheels are round. So, it’s no surprise that all these “followers” are making phones that look like Apple’s phones, that is not the issue. The issue is when others “steal” protected IP and technology Apple spent a fortune creating.
BTW, I think the jury foreman was wrong because he missed that point. Samsung could have taken Android and came up with another way to “unlock, swipe or whatever” on their phones but they didn’t. They just copy iOS and how it functions.
*shrug* Maybe the screws being so obvious is appealing that it is easily user upgradable. 😛
Rumors have been circulating for quite a while about Amazon doing a smartphone
Which no doubt would sell below cost and suck.
yes, but they’ll make it up in volume! 😉
Why of course! This is a process I call ‘Buying Market Share’. Only desperate, uncompetitive companies stoop this low. Amazon has already done it with their Kindle thingies. Shameless. Deplorable. Anti-capitalist.
All funded by Bribed U.S. Governmental unjust exchanges with Gaggle in their ears, AmaZONE in their eyes & communist ScamDung for Brains. Gut Wrenching & Pathetic this once great nation has become.
There’s some new corruption made obvious in #MyStupidGovernment every day. I’m developing the classic cynical sneer about the whole thing. In the morning I heard Elizabeth Warren saying something helpful and important. In the afternoon I heard Lindsay Graham say something helpful and important. It’s not all totally hopeless. But these days the default is ‘trust no one…’ which is never good.
Don’t worry, iPhone sales may tank but iPod touch/iPad mini sales will rise since the ‘phone’ capabilities may be the prime reason for getting the Amazon phone more afford-ably over the iPhone.
old joke: With capitalism, man exploits man. With communism, it’s just the opposite.
Bwahaha! Hmm. I suppose that exploitation from one direction or another is the common theme. I’d rather it was fair competition. That’s what we’re best at. This parasitic thing is consistently our downfall.
Theoretically, neither ‘system’, as stated, needs to exploit anyone. Capitalism is remarkable, when it works, when people follow the rules of competition. It falls apart when the exploitation, aka cheating and crime, take over. With communism, it’s based on faerie tales, unicorns and rainbows that works for a tiny few and sounds great to many others. But when you get down to the ground with it, you end up with a culture that rewards no one and turns into chaos. Thus it immediately becomes totalitarian if only to preserve some sense of order and authority. Meanwhile, those who require incentive to be creative turn to crime in order to find it. Sick and twisted.
Every social system gathers hearts, minds, votes in a self-reinforcing process of kinship building. Kinship rules — you are allowed to exist within these strictures; violating them you must do penance; renouncing them you must be punished.
Anthropology 101, but everybody continues to be suckered by the same old come-ons, and perform as puppets on demand.
I never took anthropology. But I picked up bits of it from reading and watching related programs.
We are, fundamentally, a tribal species.
Then there are we independents who are driven to think for ourselves, while also instinctively needing to be part of the tribe, instinctively sensing the state of the tribe, needing the approval of the tribe. Typically we get shoved into leadership positions and hate it. But maybe we make the best leaders, putting ourselves into the position of being contrary to our nature. – Or so I surmise at this point in my lessons.
The mouthpieces of these social systems are the most to be despised, for they are the vanguard of the creeping slime of conformity to someone else’s principle of how we should live our lives.
I find the ‘conformity’ to be particularly odd and wrong in mankind. And yet, of course, the schooling/herding behavior protects a perceived ‘whole’ and allows far better survival and productivity than a bunch of independent cats who won’t collaborate.
I suppose it’s like making a bungee jump: What’s it gonna be? Gravity or elastic? Which pull wins?
In nature, diversity rules, even among the conformist species like bees and ants. Without the influx of difference and new, every species hits a wall of extinction. I’ve enjoyed studying our ancestors (we assume) the bacteria. They have remarkable methods of sharing diversity among themselves, while also typically being colonial species.
Did you study the dung beetles.
Not up close and personal, thankfully. But I have seen the documentaries. I don’t know much about their social structure.
BTW: Part of my schooling was two years at USF and about four years working/studying at UF. I believe that’s vaguely in your territory.
Because one of the dung beetles is downvoting us. He will perish, however, for we are not providing him with his accustomed fecal nourishment, but with life-giving enzymes.
HAHAHAHAHA!
After long experience posting at Ars Technica, which is remarkably similar to MDN. I don’t care about voting up and down. I’m interested in MY standards and not interested in loony-of-the-day’s standards, if they have any. So I would not have noticed our stalking dung beetle.
I can guestimate that the [expletive deleted] which calls itself ‘GM’ is still obsessed with me. Oooo! It has a very psychopathic strain to its communication. I call that sort of stuff ‘Other People’s Problems’ and I pay it as little heed as possible.
When someone comes forward and tells <you in no uncertain terms how you should behave, think, and believe, do you not understand that they are attempting to regulate your life according to their self-defined principles?
Fur shur. I obsessively think about these incidents. At the time of the interaction I typically don’t comprehend what’s going on. It’s later that I realize the manipulation going on, the expectation of conformity, even in the face of gross ignorance on their part. We see it here at MDN constantly, whereby someone attempts to educate folks with useful information, then someone chimes in to not just disagree, but destroy the messenger. It’s a constant, I find, within human groups.
In my life, I instinctively want to believe what people tell me is ‘true’. It’s automatic! Then I realize: OMG that’s total bullshit. Now WHY would they believe that was ‘true’? I especially notice this on the science shows, as PBS here in the USA. Bad science is all over the place these days. ‘Now why do believe that’s true?’ Oops, bad science.
You are that rare person, who is, or can become, a renaissance man to change future lives for the better. Why do I make such a wild claim? Because you resist becoming captive to any ideology by the sheer force of your common sense, as brokered by your upbringing, not to minimise your scientific training.
Ideology advances no person, it only swells the ranks of some remote huckster, and you and I have avoided that by a willingness to change our minds even in the face of shotgun ‘evidence.’ It takes chutzpah to go against the grain and you have that, rare in a man (in my limited experience)
🙂
Well! Rare in a man! Thank you dear goddess.
What is the female version of megalomania? I feel afflicted by it tonight. Allow me to check the tide tables and the phase of the Moon…
Based on how slowly the courts have resolved Apple’s disputes with Samsung, if “resolved” is even the right word, suing Amazon would just be another waste of time. Apple would best served to just forge ahead, and perhaps just steal any patented technology they might find useful themselves along the way. The legal system is too antiquated and tortoise-like to deal with modern technological evolution, and until that gets changed it’s just dog eat dog. Apple’s a pretty big dog.