According to numbers crunched by The Guardian‘s Charles Arthur and based on data from Chitika and comScore, it appears as if the Amazon Fire Phone isn’t exactly setting hardly anything on fire. In fact, if this report is to be believed, Amazon hasn’t sold more than 35,000 total Fire Phone units since the much-hyped unveiling of the device in June.
Almost a month ago, it seemed like Google’s reported $1 billion acquisition of the video game streaming website Twitch was a done deal. However, according to The Information, Amazon is in “late-stage” negotiations to purchase the company instead. The financial terms of this rumored deal have not been disclosed, so it’s unknown what would cause talks between Mountain View and Twitch to fall apart.
There was very little reason for any self-respecting gadgeteer not to pick up a Chromecast stick at the full price of £30, but there’s even less excuse now that three online retailers – Amazon, Tesco and Currys – have discounted it to just £18.
Amazon is offering it with free delivery too. There’s no indication that this is a permanent price-cut (it’s still sitting at £30 on the Google Play site), so if you’ve been considering one, now would be the time to buy – especially with three free months of Google Play Music All Access thrown in.
Chromecast recently celebrated its first birthday, Google reporting that it had been used to cast content 400 million times in its first year. The capabilities of the devices have grown steadily, with Google last month adding mirroring from almost any Android device.
Via thenextweb. Image credit: softpedia.com
Amazon’s Fire Phone didn’t get off to the best of starts, with most reviews panning it, but it just got a little better thanks to its first over-the-air update – mostly providing things it should have had in the first place.
Fire OS 3.5.1 provides a quick means of switching between apps, app folders, pinning of favorite apps to the home carousel, improved battery-life and more. To install it, swipe down from the top of the home screen to open Quick Actions, select Settings, then tap Device > Install system updates > Check Now to download. Once it’s downloaded, tap Install System Update and wait for the restart.
If the improvements are enough to make you consider a Fire Phone of your own, it’s available direct from Amazon from $649 outright or from $0 to $299 on contract.
You can read chapter-and-verse on all the improvements below.
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6YXllIqD_E]
Small businesses looking to take occasional card payments without paying monthly fees now have a third option as Amazon has launched Local Register to compete with Square and PayPal Here – as we predicted last month over on 9to5Mac. The $10 card-reader is currently only compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S3, S4 and S5, along with the Kindle Fire HD and HDX tablets, but more devices are expected to be added.
Amazon is undercutting both competitor services with a flat fee of 2.5 percent per transaction (vs 2.7 percent for PayPal Here and 2.75 percent for Square). Not enough? Amazon is sweetening the deal with a special introductory rate of 1.75 percent until the end of 2015, and will also credit the $10 cost of the cardreader in full against transaction fees …
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Chromebooks are already making waves with educators and school districts and of course retailers are no exception. Amazon is currently running a back to school promotion that knocks $20 or more off the regular asking price of select Chromebooks. This brings some device’s like the Acer C720P Chromebook to an all time low. Other machines like the HP Chromebook 11, which features an Exynos 5 processor, 2GB of RAM and an 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 display are available for $200.
There will be some nervous faces in Amazon’s headquarters as Google today partners with rival booksellers Barnes & Noble to extend the Google Shopping Express service to books, reveals the New York Times.
Starting on Thursday, book buyers in Manhattan, West Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area will be able to get same-day deliveries from local Barnes & Noble stores through Google Shopping Express, Google’s fledgling online shopping and delivery service …
Amazon has announced this morning that a slew of new media apps are now available for your enjoyment on the Fire TV. On top of the platform’s already large number of apps, you can now access WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH Disney Jr., MLB.TV, Animal Planet L!ve, and the WWE Network. The company says that even more are coming though, including WATCH ABC, NFL Now, A&E, Lifetime, and more.
The press release also touts the company’s TV gaming endeavors including its exclusive deal with Rovio to bring Angry Birds Family to the Fire TV. The company says that many more apps and games are on their way to the platform, and that this is just the beginning.
New services include WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH Disney Jr., MLB.TV, Animal Planet L!ve, and WWE Network, and more are already on the way—by the end of the year TV services such as WATCH ABC, WATCH ABC Family, NFL Now, A&E, Lifetime, Outside TV, Young Hollywood, North Face TV, Fashion TV, Green TV andDailymotion will all be available to Fire TV customers.
Be sure to follow 9to5Toys to keep up with the best gear and deals on the web: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Today’s can’t miss deals:
Updates:
Amazon matches Motorola’s back to school sale. Grab an unlocked Moto X for $300 http://t.co/ZcbEDqYycP pic.twitter.com/8vGAWgVBKw
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 31, 2014
Chromebook Deals:
Gadget protection: Nexus 7 (first gen) & Nexus 10 rooCASE (multiple colors) $4, more
Android App Deals:
Google Chromecast streaming media player $30 shipped (Reg. $35)
Other new deals:
More Daily Deals! Enloop rechargeable AA+D: $7, Sony Earbuds: $11, Sony Smartwatch: $60 http://t.co/VTP6vYbmxg pic.twitter.com/wvToGE7DTW
— 9to5Toys (@9to5toys) July 31, 2014
More deals still alive:
New products/ongoing promotions:
Amazon’s unlimited ebook and audiobook subscription service finally goes live in the U.S., try it free http://t.co/M9q7crx7bl
— NewGeekGuide (@NewGeekGuide) July 18, 2014
Amazon has just kicked off a 2-day Android App sale that includes 30 different apps for free. These “essential” apps cover a range of categories including games, utilities, travel, finance, fitness and more. This sale is a great way to pad your app library without spending a dime.
Before you get started, make sure you have the Amazon Appstore for Android installed on your smartphone or tablet.
Here’s our top picks:
The reason Amazon’s Fire Phone has failed to impress is that it spent so much on the “gimmick” of dynamic perspective that it only had enough cash left to build an otherwise mediocre phone – the conclusion of a component analysis of a teardown of the phone.
Dynamic perspective allows the phone to detect and respond to head movements when viewing the phone’s display, but has been widely seen by reviewers as a novelty or gimmick.
Following iFixit’s earlier teardown of the Fire Phone, re/code has been given sight of a component costing following a separate teardown by research form IHS. This reveals that the total component cost of the Fire Phone is around $205 – more expensive even than Apple’s flagship iPhone 5S. The cost of the dynamic perspective technology left little room for anything but mid-range specs in the rest of the handset, says IHS …
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iFixit has added to the poor reception given to Amazon’s first ever smartphone, the Fire Phone, by rating it 3/10 for repairability. Even Amazon didn’t seem to have great confidence in the technology, its first ad focusing instead on the free 1-year Amazon Prime subscription you get with the phone.
Despite external, non-proprietary screws and no adhesive holding the casing together, iFixit found that simply removing the battery proved challenging, requiring a mix of heating and prying. After that, says the company, things only got worse …
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Amazon has finally stepped into the ring to take on the current champions of the smartphone market with its own device, the Fire Phone. In what essentially boils down to a smaller version of the Kindle Fire tablet, the Fire Phone packs a custom-built operating system dubbed Fire OS, a “dynamic perspective” system powered by four front-facing cameras that allow you to control the phone and access advanced information just by moving your head, and more.
Tonight the first reviews of the Fire Phone have hit the web, and while many see some potential in the device, Amazon still has quite a few issues to covercome if it plans to truly put a dent in this market. Below we’ve compiled some excerpts from these reviews along with links to the full write-ups.
Amazon’s worst kept secret, an all-you-can-read Kindle eBook service, is now live. Dubbed Kindle Unlimited, this $10 per month subscription service grants its members unlimited access to over 600,000 ebooks and thousands of audiobooks. Highlights of the library include:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, Water for Elephants, Oh Myyy! – There Goes The Internet, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People… plus thousands of classics such as Animal Farm, To the Lighthouse and 2001: A Space Odyssey…
Kindle Unlimited members will also get free access to Audible’s library of over 150,000 audiobooks for 3-months. After which, you’ll presumably need to pay the standard rate of $14.95 per month.
Anyone in the U.S. can try Kindle Unlimited for free for 30 days by signing up for a free trial. All of this content is available on Android, iOS, Windows phone, and of course all Kindle hardware.
Full press release follows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f3Vcm00n1oU
Amazon’s Fire Phone is officially set to be released on July 25th, but the company has just shared the first ad for the device. Instead of focusing on the device’s unique features like the Firefly button or Dynamic Perspective, the ad focuses entirely on the fact that the phone comes with a free year of Amazon Prime.
Amazon is currently testing an all you can eat subscription-based ebook and audio book service called “Kindle Unlimited.” A product landing page spotted by GigaOM revealed that the unannounced service will provide customers with access to over 600,000 titles for $10 a month. While subscription-based e-book services for smartphones and tablets already exist, Amazon has a vast number of resources that could quickly make the company a force in this relatively untapped market.
Google X director Babak Parviz founded and led both the Google Glass and contact lens projects at Google, but it appears he has now left the Mountain View corporation in favor of Amazon. This news comes shortly after just two months ago stepping aside to let former Old Navy and Gap marketing VP Ivy Ross take the Google Glass helm.
Amazon is now a part of the Federal Trade Commission’s investigations into technology corporations with mobile application marketplaces unlawfully billing parents for in-app-purchases. Both Apple and Google have been tangled in the allegations with Apple settling earlier this year and Apple telling the FTC to investigate Google. The FTC today announced it is filing a complaint against Amazon, saying that children have been able to buy goods and extras within apps without the consent of parents. The full release from the FTC can be found below:
Google has partnered with cloud storage startup Panzura to offer developers 2 TB of free storage for a full year, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. It’s the latest move in the continuing battle between competitors like Google and Amazon to dominate the cloud storage market.
The new plans are focused more on cloud app developers than end users, who will still want to rely on services like Google Drive or Dropbox for their own storage needs. However, for app developers looking for cloud solutions, Google’s new offer could provide a pretty decent starting point. Getting 2 TB of storage on Amazon, by comparison, would run at least $240 a year, while a similar setup on Microsoft’s cloud system would cost even more.
A Re/code piece on Google’s Shopping Express service says that the company is investing $500M to expand the service beyond San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City and roll it out nationally.
The service lets shoppers buy things from local retail stores through Google, which then delivers them to consumers from the physical retail store on the same or next day.
A source familiar with the company’s plans says senior Google execs have set aside as much as $500 million to expand the service nationwide …
Zoltan Szabadi, a former manager at Amazon Web Services, is being sued by the company after accepting a job on Google’s Cloud team. Amazon claim that by accepting the new role, Szabadi violated a non-compete clause in his employment contract. It will now be up to the courts to decide whether the broad terms of the original agreement actually hold up.
At Amazon, Szabadi was responsible for managing business partnerships with third parties. When he joined Google, he was specifically blocked (by Google, not Amazon) from reaching out to any of his former contacts within six months. Amazon said that wasn’t good enough, however, and filed a lawsuit last week.
From 9to5Toys.com:
For the next 48 hours, the Amazon App Store for Android is making 31 popular apps and games available for free. This package of apps would cost over $100 if purchased individually at their standard rates.
Amazon hasn’t fluffed this promo with poor titles either. Some of the best known apps include Plex, The Room Two, Slashtop Remote Desktop HD, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Enigmatis: The Ghosts of Maple Creek.
While you’re at the Amazon App store you might as well pick up the free app of the day too. Today’s app is the “thrilling, action game,” MacGyver Deadly Descent.
If all these downloads are chewing up too much space on your phone or tablet, then head over to the Amazon Gold Box deal of the day and save up to 70% off select Sony memory cards.
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BlackBerry continues its push to make the platform’s app ecosystem on par with Android and iOS, and a new move announced today will probably be the company’s biggest stride yet. As of the BlackBerry 10.3 update landing this Fall, the apps within the Amazon Appstore will be available to BlackBerry 10 device owners.
Amazon is expected to announce its first smartphone tomorrow, but the outfit seems to have a lot more in its pipeline. The folks at Lab126, the company’s secretive hardware division are reportedly busy working on several unannounced projects. According to Bloomberg, one group is rumored to be working on a gadget that projects a computer image onto any surface. Another team within the company’s R&D fold is laboring away on a wireless speaker that responds to voice commands and a third crew is working on a payment accepting device said to be in the vein of Square.
