Amazon's second smartphone could forego an app store.

Reuters said the phone is codenamed Transformer

AI integration is a “key focus” of Transformer, per Reuters’ sources, who said that Amazon wants the phone to drive usage of Amazon’s AI products

It’s unclear why Amazon thinks now is a good time to get back into phones. Even potentially low prices may not be enough to convince people to buy.

You ARE looking forward to this, right?

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 hours ago

    low prices.

    Oh. That’s the angle.

    Amazon will basically give these away, like Prime. And at least some people will lap them up because they can’t help themselves.

    With absolutely zero offense intented, I just saw another Lemmy user complain about ads on Prime Video, apparently unaware that they’re now gated by an additional subscription. And any Lemmy user has to be in the top 1% of “enshittification awareness.” That was always the plan, but our monkey brains often cannot help themselves when we see a short-term deal.

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 hours ago

    Also, these could be interesting as a “dirt cheap phone to root.”

    Amazon will subsidize the snot out of them. I’ll take their money, thanks very much.

  • auris@lemmus.orgEnglish
    3·
    4 hours ago

    No app store, have to rely on Alexa, who is definitely collecting and storing your personal data to do things by telling it everything, and a year ago they changed their terms so you can’t opt out of your Alexa recordings being automatically sent to Amazon… every day billionaires are closer and closer to successfully turning our phones into telescreens.

    And I bet the phone is gonna be full of ads and product placement too, if it happens. I know before I finally ditched my Alexa over a year ago it was trying to suggest shit for me to buy I didn’t need.

    “Alexa phone, call the doctor, I’m sick I need an ap—”

    “You sure? This pack of cold medicine on Amazon has 5 star reviews, and is much cheaper than your doctor visit! Would you like me to add it to your cart for same-day delivery?”

    Like. That’s maybe a little more time down the line in dystopian hypotheticals, but the vague implications behind the AI doing everything so you don’t have to gives up so much free will, and I’m just saying… it’s a power grab disguised as efficiency. Ugh.

  • curbstickle@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    5·
    6 hours ago

    It has not yet been officially reported that I’m developing plans to purchase a Motorola device with Graphene on it. This project has been codenamed “Fuck Google”.

    A key focus of this effort is the synergy around a phone without corporate AI, without Google control, and readily available by preinstallation on the device. Research shows this “preinstalled” approach scores highly in the WAF scoring index.