Amazon developing a new phone more than a decade after its first

Who remembers the Fire?

The latest effort, known internally as “Transformer,” is being developed within its devices and services unit, according to four people familiar with the matter. The phone is ‌seen as a potential mobile personalization device that can sync with home voice assistant Alexa and serve as a conduit to Amazon customers throughout the day, the people said.

The initiative is the newest chapter in a years-long effort to bring ‌to market Bezos’ long-held vision of a ubiquitous voice-driven computing assistant akin to the voice-controlled computer in science fiction series “Star Trek.”

Bezos had envisioned a smartphone that had shopping at its core and could take on Apple by offering shipping convenience and discounts through the Prime membership. Along the way, Amazon could gain a wealth of ​new data about users only available through mobile phones combined with purchase history and content preferences.

As envisioned, the new phone’s personalization features would make buying from Amazon.com, watching Prime Video, listening to Prime Music or ordering food from partners like Grubhub easier than ever, the people said. They asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters.

A key focus of the Transformer project has been integrating artificial intelligence ‌capabilities into the device, the people said. That could eliminate the need for traditional app stores, ⁠which require downloading and registering for applications before they can be used.

The project is being led by a year-old group within Amazon’s devices unit called ZeroOne, whose mandate ​is to create “breakthrough” gadgets, the people said. ZeroOne is led by J Allard, a former Microsoft executive involved in such devices ​as the Zune music player and Xbox gaming console.

The head of Amazon’s devices and services unit, Panos Panay, has been working to reverse years of unprofitability in the division. That includes a forthcoming tablet that ‌will—for the first time—run Android instead of Fire OS and could sell for around $400, which Reuters was ​first to report.

One inspiration for the new phone has been the Light Phone, two of the people said, a $700 minimalist smartphone with a camera, map, calendar and not much else, such as an app store or web browser.

A dumbphone or feature phone could also ​help Amazon market it as a potential second handset to accompany iPhones and Samsung Galaxies already ‌in customers’ pockets, the people said. Such handsets, like the Light Phone and flip phones, accounted for 15% of global handset sales in 2025, according to Counterpoint Research.

Source: Yahoo Finance

NB: The problem with any new phone, whether it's from Amazon or Google or Meta or OpenAI or Trump…

... isn't that there isn't a logic for it. The problem is that phones only work at scale and that means extreme distribution, manufacturing and supply chain competency. Small players are short lived. If you don't have scale, the platform dies from lack of developer support and there is no resonance with an ecosystem.

Even Microsoft could not make it happen with a licensing model, followed by its own hardware. It's an old story. The Fire was particularly badly received. It lasted barely a year.

The other problem is that, like Alexa, the Amazon phone is positioned as a shopping product. Many users are not happy with an "assistant" who happens to be moonlighting for the people trying to get your money. You want to have a phone on your side not on the seller's side. Alexa ended up in a dead end because it's not trustworthy.

Finally there is the problem of iterating over interfaces and jobs-to-be-done. The failure of Humane, Rabbit, and Meta VR as well as probable failure of other wearables from the usual suspects is that nobody knows how interaction will work, and to figure it out, you need to have an open platform where developers actually iterate and discover resonance. And you can't solve the interface and killer app problem without scale, iteration and developer interest.

As the article notes, consumer AI is an open problem. Solutions will take time and emerge slowly--similar to the gestation periods of the internet and social media.