Could Amazon’s Fire Phone be the next gadget in your life?

• What is Firefly, and how might it offer competitive advantage? How does mobile (in general) and Firefly (in particular) change shopping habits?

Amazon is mostly known for their success in online retailing and the competitive prices. In the last several years however, they have started to brach out with their line of Fire products. Amazon has come out with the Kindle Fire, Fire TV, and their latest addition The Fire Phone. There new Fire Phone has a technology that is unique to itself and that is Firefly. Firefly is a software that allows the user to scan an item with the camera and get information about that particular product. It can tell you the price of an item, the nutritional facts about the item, and even recommend songs based on what your listening to. This firefly feature even has it own dedicated button on the phone so even if you are on the lock screen, you are able to pull up this fast feature. This type of technology is new to the market and could have an impact on the way future phones are designed.

Amazon’s Fire phone is, as Techradar put it, “a shopping tool for amazon with some phone features baked in.” Even though it might bash the phone a bit, it is completely true. The phone is specifically made to put online shopping right at the users fingertips. The Fire phone, along with its software Firefly, make it so shopping is quick and convenient. If you realized that you were out of a particular item, all you would have to do is scan it and use the 1-click ordering and then its done. You almost never have to go shopping at a normal retail store again.

Although the phone may seem like a very cool phone with lots of new and innovative features, it still did very poorly in 2014. It couldn’t compare to mobile giants such as Apple and Samsung. I personally can’t wait to see what improvements amazon makes, if any, to this phone in order for it to compete with the leading brands.

For the Techradar review of the Amazon Fire phone see: http://www.techradar.com/us/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/amazon-fire-phone-1259146/review