Bloomberg reports that Foxconn is working with Amazon on a "wider range of low-priced hardware devices"; even more tellingly, it's just hired Intellectual Ventures' former senior director of acquisitions.

  • http://theangryhug.blogspot.com William Owen

    This hasn’t even come out yet and I feel utterly confident in calling this the Amazon Shitbird.

  • http://www.thisisat3st.com Ryan

    Hey man, it can’t hurt to have more competition in the market, right?

    • David Breece

      More competition:        good.

      More patent lawsuits:  decidedly bad.

      • firefly the great

        You’d be an idiot to enter the smartphone market without hiring the biggest, meanest lawyer you can find. It’s a terrible situation, but I really can’t find any reason to blame amazon here.

  • Chuck

    I don’t see anything special in Amazon’s plans.  And I’d just recommend buying the smartphone manufactured and sold at your local independent book store anyway.

  • http://profiles.google.com/be.slayed Benjamin Slade

    In more positive news, Mozilla also plans to release their own smartphone(s) with their own operating system, Firefox OS. (Samsung’s also developing their own OS called Tizen, which,  like Android and the Firefox OS, is also Linux-based.)

    • technobach

       Why do tech companies insist on calling the OS the same as their browser?

  • bcsizemo

    *sigh*…it’s like watching the PC vs. Apple wars all over again.

  • Dito

    You know what will impress me? When X decides to make a *better* smartphone/tablet instead of just chasing Apple. That’s how Apple did it – they made a device that was better(*) than what was already on the market. 

    I also think companies like Google, Amazon, etc., need to stop trying to win based on lower prices. That almost inevitably means lower-powered hardware with fewer capabilities.

    In other words, if you build a better mousetrap…

    (*) Subjective, I know – but I’m thinking more in terms of market share and paradigm changes.

    • http://insight.pinkonbrown.org/ Dr P Fenderson

      You know what will impress me? When Apples decides to make a better smartphone/tablet instead of just stealing the work of many that came before, patenting the theft, and then suing the pants off of anyone who decides they want to innovate. What they “innovated” was slapping all the previous technologies (read: Palm, Nokia, Xerox, Motorola, etc) into an attractive, white-plastic case. 

      Judges are finally fed up with Apple’s trolling, and are now just rejecting the cases outright. Outside of the US Apple has already lost the war. They can’t hold traction in nearly any patent court around. The US, which has a well-documented failing patent system, is the only place they seem to be able to still make waves…and it’s more like ripples in the kiddie pool. They don’t even want license fulfillment – they’ve rejected the ability for companies to pay licensing fees for the patents in question. They only want to halt any sort of competition.

      Google and Amazon aren’t trying to win with lower prices. They’re filling a niche that Apple officially refused to fill – small tablets for people who don’t need giant, expensive ones. And what you’re basically asking for is a lack of innovation. Isn’t the point of technology like this the choice to pick what sort of device I want? Why do we want all the hardware to be the same power and price? That seems absurd. If I want a cheap phone, I should be able to get one. If I want an expensive phone, I should be able to get one.

      Amazon built a better mousetrap – they built a small, cheap tablet that did exactly what it said on the tin – and even more. And people loved it, making it the 2nd most popular tablet ever sold.

  • jeligula

    I don’t see a problem here. Since Apple automatically sues anybody who releases anything whatsoever, those other companies should be able to try whatever it is they think will work.  In the long run, I don’t think any of this will matter whatsoever, as I am sure we will again see corporations putting their workers in corporate-owned housing, the rent for which exceeds their wages.  Need food?  Welfare is abolished because you can always get what you need at the company store, just sign for it against future earnings.  Yeah, we get change, all right.