Because Amazon's Fire phone was a failure. Ice arrives

Only two months after Amazon's Fire smartphone was launched, the product failed to live up to expectations.

Amazon customers themselves gave the smartphone a disappointing rating of 2,6 stars out of 5. Reading the feedback, the defithe most common definitions were "to forget" and "mediocre".
Amazon hoped to acquire a significant chunk of the huge global smartphone market, dominated by rivals like Apple (AAPL, -0,15%), Google (GOOG, + 0,24%) and Samsung. In addition, the Fire was supposed to help sales on Amazon's online store by making it easier for them to search and purchase products. The experience for Amazon was very disappointing, and it is unclear whether it will be able to recover its flop.

Amazon's chances of success in the smartphone market have always been very low. The fire phone product did not show any elements of innovation, it seemed to be an adequate device with characteristics comparable to the others on the market in terms of screen, camera and memory. What could have characterized and distinguished the product is a three-dimensional effect for the graphics. On certain applications and an application called Firefly that allows Amazon store shoppers to easily locate more than 100 million different products and purchase them online.
But in a market dominated by Apple and Android devices, distributing an "adequate" product is not enough. To stand out, a smartphone like Fire phone would have had to have absolutely innovative hardware and software features.
"If he had presented himself with this phone a long time ago, they could have had a lot more attention," says Frank Gillett, a Forrester analyst.
Robert Brunner, who worked as Apple's industrial design director from 1989 to 1997 and later collaborated on the design of Amazon's first e-reader, gave it a much more pessimistic rating. “To be frank, the Amazon phone has zero cache,” he says. “The design itself is neutral”.

Additionally, fire was the most blatant attempt by any smartphone maker to lock their users into their product ecosystem. Of course, the iPhone has long been driving users to Apple's services, and Android users to Google's offerings as well. Amazon took it a step further by adding a "Buy" button on the side of the Fire phone. Click on it and you are within walking distance of delivery in two days.
"I personally felt that the 'Buy' button was a bit forced," says Yves Behar, the award-winning Swiss industrial designer, "There were more elegant ways to introduce it."
Amazon also wrong the sales channel. Android devices and iPhones are on the shelves of thousands of physical retailers and all four major American carriers. To buy Fire phones, you have to go to Amazon.com, and to some stores like Best Buy.

Amazon tries again with smartphones.

After the "Fire Phone" flop, Jeff Bezos's company could market a new phone: "Ice". According to the indiscretions reported by Ndtv's Gadget360 site, the smartphone would have full access to Google services and applications, including the Play Store app store.

If the "Fire" was meant for Western markets and especially for the United States, the "Ice" smartphone line would look to emerging markets like India. According to the sources quoted, Amazon intends to bring at least one model on Indian shelves later this year.

One of the devices would display between 5,2 and 5,5 inches, 2GB of Ram and 16GB of memory, 13 megapixel camera and fingerprint reader. At the time of launch, the price could be around 6 thousand rupees, about eighty euros.