Amazon today announced that Fire, the first smartphone designed by Amazon, is now available for pre-order in Germany starting at €1 and available exclusively on Deutsche Telekom.
Additionally, for a limited time (until 31 December 2014), Fire customers will receive a full year of Amazon Prime included. This is in addition to free unlimited cloud storage for photos taken on Fire and live video tech support with Mayday. Fire is the only smartphone with Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, two new breakthrough technologies that allow you to see and interact with the world through a whole new lens. Dynamic Perspective uses a new sensor system to respond to the way you hold, view, and move Fire, enabling experiences not possible on other smartphones. Firefly quickly recognizes things in the real world - web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, text and translation, artwork, movies, music, and millions of items, and lets you take action in seconds - all with the simple press of the Firefly button. Fire will launch with new and enhanced features when it ships in Germany on Sept. 30, including the latest Firefly capabilities and auto-scroll in the Kindle Reader app. Customers can pre-order at www.telekom.de/fire-phone or in Deutsche Telekom stores. Learn more about Fire at www.amazon.de/firephone .
“We’ve packed a lot of value into our first smartphone and we are delighted to bring Fire to customers in Germany,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO. “Fire is a premium phone with breakthrough technologies Dynamic Perspective and Firefly, access to exclusive features including live video tech support with the Mayday button and free unlimited photo storage, plus a full year of Prime membership - starting at €1 and available exclusively on Deutsche Telekom.”
“Fire phone from Amazon offers brand new possibilities for the mobile Internet. In order to take advantage of all the features to the full extent, this new smartphone needs a powerful, high-performing network - the Telekom’s network. The partnership between Amazon and Telekom ensures that customers experience true innovation,” says Tim Höttges, Chairman of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom. “Fire phone is available in Germany exclusively through Telekom. With this agreement, we continue to live up to our claim of always offering customers the latest devices - being the first to do so and in the best network.”
Dynamic Perspective - Immersive Smartphone Experience Dynamic Perspective uses four ultra-low power specialized cameras and four infrared LEDs built into the front face of Fire, a dedicated custom processor, sophisticated real-time computer vision algorithms, and a new high-performing and power-efficient graphics rendering engine. Dynamic Perspective features include:
One-handed gestures: Auto-scroll, tilt, swivel and peek for quicker, easier navigation and a better media and entertainment experience. For example, with auto-scroll, customers can read a long web page or a book in Kindle Reader without ever having to touch the screen; tilt in messaging app to easily attach photos from the right panel; swivel instantly reveals quick actions; peek in Maps shows Yelp ratings and reviews of restaurants, bars and museums, and more.
Immersive apps and games: Dynamic Perspective enables a new class of apps and games that are more immersive, and make it quicker and easier for the user to access information. For example, mehr-tanken uses the right panel to show search options like location and search radius. Spiegel Online lets customers easily flip through photos using tilt. In games like Bau-Simulator 2014, you can look around the scene by moving your head while you control the trucks with the gyroscope.
Carousel: Stay productive with real-time updates and take action right from the home screen - triage email, find recent photos, access most visited websites, return missed calls, view appointments, and more. Developers can customize the contents of their dynamic app and how it responds to user actions. For example, Wetter Live shows detailed current and extended weather forecast and WhatsApp displays latest unread messages right from the Fire’s home screen.
Amazon launched the Dynamic Perspective SDK that enables developers to build new experiences with this groundbreaking technology. The Amazon Appstore has seen tremendous growth with the rate of app submissions to the Appstore more than doubling in the weeks following the Fire phone launch in the U.S. In Germany, Fire customers will also have access to DogWorld 3D: Mein Dalmatiner, Stage Dive Legends, Camera ZoomFX, and Bridge Constructor Mittelalter, in addition to the tens of thousands of others already available for Fire - Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Flixster, Instagram, Pinterest, Skype, Spotify Music, Twitter and WhatsApp Messenger. Learn more about the SDK at http://developer.amazon.com/firephone .
Firefly Technology - Illuminate Your World Firefly combines Amazon’s deep catalog of physical and digital content with multiple image, text and audio recognition technologies to quickly identify a variety of items from the world around you such as web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR codes and text and translation. Firefly also recognizes artwork plus over 85 million items, including movies, TV episodes, songs, products and product bar codes. Simply press and hold the dedicated Firefly button to discover helpful information and take action in seconds.
Printed phone numbers, email, web addresses, QR, and bar codes: Firefly identifies printed text on signs, posters, magazines and business cards - make a call, send an email, save as a contact, or go to the website without typing out long URLs or email addresses.
Over 2,000 pieces of artwork: Firefly recognizes famous paintings with information available via Wikipedia in English.
Over 30 million songs: Firefly recognizes music and uses Amazon Music’s rich catalog to show information about the artist - play music, add the song to your Wish List, or download instantly to your Fire.
Tens of thousands movies and TV episodes, and 27 live TV channels: Firefly recognizes movies and TV episodes and uses IMDb X-Ray to show actors and related content.
54 million products, including household items, books, DVDs, CDs, video games, and more: Access product details, add items to your Wish List or order on Amazon.
The Firefly SDK is available so developers can invent new ways to use this advanced technology. Learn more about the SDK at http://developer.amazon.com/firephone .
Amazon Exclusive Features and Vast Digital Ecosystem - All Deeply Integrated Fire seamlessly integrates Amazon’s vast digital ecosystem for instant access to over 33 million songs, apps, games, movies, TV shows, books, and audiobooks, including thousands of exclusives. Plus, Prime members get unlimited streaming of thousands of popular films and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video, and thousands of books to borrow with the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.
Fire deeply integrates Amazon exclusive services:
Mayday is now available over 3G and 4G, in addition to Wi-Fi—simply hit the Mayday button in quick actions and an Amazon expert will appear via live video to co-pilot you through any feature on the device. Amazon experts are able to draw on the screen, talk you through how to do a task, or do it for you—whatever works best. Mayday is available 6:00-24:00, 365 days a year, and it’s free. Amazon’s response time goal for Mayday is 15 seconds or less. Calls regarding Telekom will be forwarded to Telekom at no cost.
ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) predicts which movies and TV episodes you’ll want to watch and prepares them for instant playback before you even hit play.
X-Ray helps you get more from books, movies and TV shows. Explore the bones of a book, including characters, ideas and background with a single tap on the screen; bring the power of IMDb right to Fire for films and TV.
Second Screen lets you fling TV shows and movies from Fire phone to your Fire TV, PlayStation (coming soon) or any other Miracast-enabled device. Second Screen turns your TV into the primary screen and frees up Fire phone to provide playback controls and a customized display for X-Ray, all without leaving the TV show or movie you’re watching.
Free unlimited cloud storage of photos taken with Fire , automatically backed-up wirelessly and available across Amazon devices and Cloud Drive apps so you have access anywhere.
Beautiful Industrial Design & Powerful Hardware Built using premium materials, including Gorilla Glass 3 for the rear and front, aluminum buttons, stainless steel details and a rubberized polyurethane grip area, Fire is optimized for beauty, hand comfort and powerful performance:
Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.2 GHz processor and 2GB RAM for excellent fluidity and image rendering.
4.7-inch HD display with an ambient light sensor and Dynamic Image Contrast that delivers better outdoor viewing.
Global LTE and connectivity with nine bands of LTE, four bands of GSM and five bands of UMTS, customers get better voice coverage and faster data speeds; in addition to 802.11a/b/g/n/ac support, Wi-Fi channel bonding, NFC, and Bluetooth.
Dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus for a virtual surround sound experience.
Advanced imaging system with custom-tuned 13MP rear-facing camera with backside illumination, LED flash, 5-element f/2.0 lens, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities for beautiful, crisp photos, even in low-light conditions. Fire also includes a 2.1MP front-facing camera. Both front and rear-facing cameras take advantage of Best Shot, a helpful feature that lets the user pick the optimal photo from three options captured per shot, and records smooth 1080p HD videos. Firefly also offers panorama and a new feature, lenticular capture mode, which combines a series of shots into a single photo that transitions the shots to “move” when the user tilts Fire. Customers can share the image as an auto-playing animated GIF for MMS, email and social networking sites.
Reliable backup and restore leveraging the experience and operational excellence of Amazon Web Services and its cloud technology. Fire customers can automatically back up device settings, notes, bookmarks, messages, and installed applications - no need to manually configure or connect to a computer.
Availability & Exclusive Network Partner Fire ships on Sept. 30 and is available exclusively on Deutsche Telekom. Fire users get the full power of the best German mobile network, which allows customers fast access to Firefly and content services. Starting today, customers can pre-order Fire at www.telekom.de/fire-phone, from September 9, customers can also pre-order in over 700 Telekom stores and through the free Telekom Hotline 0800/3301000.Fire is available with 32GB or 64GB, and starts at €1 with the new MagentaMobil rates (MagentaMobil M basic fee: EUR 49.95 per month).
Limited Time, Introductory Offer For a limited time (until 31 December 2014), Fire includes a full year of Prime. Enjoy streaming and downloads of thousands of popular films and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video, thousands of books to borrow with the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, and unlimited one-day shipping on millions of items. With this offer, existing Prime members will receive an additional 12 months of membership.