Amazon, inarguably the zaniest tech company in the heavyweight class, is widely expected to release its very own smartphone this week. The Seattle-based company teased its new product—a physical device this time and not a service—with a mysterious video and an inscrutable event invite in the form of the children’s book with this message:
The gist of the message (as you can probably guess): If you paint your house purple, it will stand out—and Amazon is certainly in the business of doing just that. The gist of the “device unveiling” video: you haven’t seen anything like this.
What We Think We Know
While we’re not that interested in feeding the rumor mill, it’s proven pretty consistent this time around. That said, Amazon is Amazon—and that means anything could happen. From the invite wording and preview video, we can safely assume that the big reveal will be a new chunk of Amazon-branded hardware, widely rumored to be a smartphone. But in true Amazon fashion, things are likely to get weird.
As the video and early rumors have suggested, the device will feature some kind of 3D display effect. It could be an amped-up version of Apple’s iOS 7 parallax effect—a software-powered optical illusion that employs the iPhone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to map the device’s physical movement through axes in space. But that doesn’t sound like enough for a company like Amazon and its purple house ethos.
Considering its Fire line of devices (the Kindle Fire tablets and the Fire TV), we’d expect the newest member of Amazon’s hardware family to sport the Fire branding too. Beyond that, the device is expected to offer pretty standard hardware specs. And like the Fire tablets, it will presumably run on a “forked” version of Android—one with Amazon’s shopping and multimedia ecosystem woven deeply throughout.
“A New Type Of Sensor”
It’s possible that Amazon’s rumored 3D effect will have something to do with head and eye motion-tracking cameras, which could execute tasks in the user interface just based on where the user is looking—think opening apps, scrolling through a webpage or buying shoes on Amazon Prime using only your eyes. Amazon’s event sign-up, open to developers, had some telling tidbits about a “new type of sensor”—one that could eclipse the sort of tricks an accelerometer and gyroscope can pull off.
Whatever happens, Amazon’s launch will be a big one. Historically, the company’s major hardware releases were mostly noteworthy for undercutting the competition’s pricing, like in the case of the original $199 Kindle Fire. The hardware played second fiddle to the device’s carefully curated (i.e. Amazon services-centric) user experience.
But more recent innovations have moved into hardware territory. Case in point: the Amazon Dash, a sort of magic wand that reduces the lag between wanting to buy a product and having it in your hands. Amazon’s anticipated foray into the smartphone market is likely to push that envelope even further.
Header image by Fickr user Formatc1
