Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has just announced the company's first-ever smartphone, the Fire Phone, at a private event in Seattle. The device is the latest in a growing family of Amazon hardware that includes the Kindle Fire tablets and the Fire TV set-top box. The phone is exclusive to AT&T, and will cost $199 with a two-year contract for a 32GB device and $299 for a 64GB device. The phone will cost $650 off-contract, which is common for high-end smartphones. Amazon's product page indicates that it's available for pre-order now, and will begin shipping to buyers on July 25. For a "limited time," a full year of Amazon Prime membership is included with purchase. 
 
 The phone has a 4.7-inch IPS display with 590 nits maximum brightness and a 1280×720 resolution, giving it a density of 315PPI. This isn't the biggest or highest-resolution phone there is, but Amazon says it has been "optimized for one-handed use." The phone has a rubberized frame, a glass back, anodized aluminum buttons, and Gorilla Glass 3 protecting the display from scratches and other damage. The phone is 0.35 inches (8.9mm) thick and weighs 5.64 ounces (160 grams). 
 
 The phone's most-hyped capability, of course, is its motion-tracking screen—four cameras on the front of the device track your head as you move it around, along with infrared lights to make sure the feature works even in dark rooms. You can move and tilt the phone to shift the contents of the display (images, maps, and so on), subtly creating a glasses-free 3D effect that doesn't rely on the user keeping their head or eyes in a particular position. The phone will let you flip through images and scroll through Web pages by slightly tilting the device, rather than relying solely on finger input. A third-party SDK is available so that developers can add this "dynamic perspective" feature to their own apps. 
 
 On the inside, the phone is suitably high-end: it uses a quad-core 2.2GHz SoC with an Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM—according to Amazon's product page, the phone uses a Snapdragon 800. It uses a 2,400mAh battery that Amazon says will deliver up to 11 hours of video playback, and it includes 802.11ac Wi-Fi. The Fire OS 3.5.0 operating system is a newer version of the Android-derived OS that powers the Kindle Fire HDX tablets. 
 
 It's got a 13MP camera with a f/2.0, five-element lens and optical image stabilization that sounds pretty good on paper, though, of course, we'll need to get our hands on the thing before we know exactly how good its pictures are. A dedicated shutter button like the one found on Windows phones will automatically open the camera app and take pictures for you, and Bezos boasted that buyers will get free unlimited photo storage via Amazon Cloud Drive. 
 
 Amazon also paid attention to the phone's sound: it uses dual stereo speakers and includes "tangle-free" earbuds that should knot up less easily. 
 
 Though both Apple and Google have their own media ecosystems, one of Amazon's main selling points was the amount of stuff you get access to in the Amazon ecosystem. Prime customers get access to the Kindle Lending Library and Prime Instant Video, and Amazon's MP3 store and Kindle bookstore are both well-stocked. Third-party apps like Netflix and HBO Go will be available on the Fire Phone as well, expanding the amount of content accessible from outside Amazon's stores. 
 
 Bezos also demoed a new feature called " Firefly " that can identify songs being played in a room, episodes of various TV shows, and art. Firefly can recognize phone numbers, e-mail addresses, barcodes and QR codes, and other items, importing them into the phone and making it easier to contact people (and, of course, buy stuff) without needing to do a lot of extraneous typing. These images are taken by the camera, sent to Amazon's cloud, and sent back to the phone to save the phone's processor and its battery life. Amazon has created a third-party SDK that developers can use to come up with their own uses for Firefly. 
 
 Finally, the "Mayday" live tech support feature that was introduced with the Kindle Fire HDX tablets this year is coming to the phone, too, offering 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week tech support to customers who need it. 
 
 We've been hearing rumors about this phone since at least 2012, when a Bloomberg report about an Amazon phone first surfaced. Those rumors intensified earlier this year, and the buzz was that Amazon would be using multiple motion-sensing cameras and software from Omron to simulate a three-dimensional effect without using glasses or a special screen setup like Nintendo's 3DS. 
 
 Amazon's smartphone event has wrapped up. We'll have hands-on impressions of the Fire Phone up later today. 

 Amazon.com stepped into the smartphone ring Wednesday, unveiling the Fire Phone, a 4.7 inch device with 3D capabilities, a 13 megapixel camera and free photo storage. 
 
 Users can control the phone by tilting it, adding a three-dimensional element to its screen. They can also navigate through menus or maps just by moving the phone from side to side. The Fire Phone even employs eye-tracking technology, so that the image on the screen changes as the users moves his or her head. 
 
 The phone is Amazon's bet that it can take on Apple and Samsung, while drawing more customers into its Prime subscription service universe. It plugs directly into Amazon's Prime Video, Prime Music and cloud storage services. It is also closely integrated with the company's Kindle reading apps and Audible audiobooks services. 
 
 Amazon said the phone, which will be available exclusively through AT&T, will start at $199.99 with a 2-year contract for a 32 GB model. A 64 GB model costs $299.99. Without a contract, the phone will cost $649.99. Pre-orders for the phone begin Wednesday, and the phones will be available starting July 25. 
 
 Playing up Amazon's devotion to the individual customer and the media ecosystem it has built with its Prime subscription service, chief executive Jeff Bezos said that Amazon's growing universe of services set the phone apart. 
 
 Amazon is offering a free year of Amazon Prime membership, a $99 value, for those who buy the phone; current Prime subscribers will be able to add 12 months to their current membership at no cost. That is a limited time offer, though Amazon did not specify how long the promotion will run. 
 
 The phone lets you scan products in stores, so that you can buy things directly from Amazon, using a new service called “Firefly.” Users can even use the phone to “listen” to songs or videos, and link users to places to buy them. It can also recognize art, and scan text such as phone numbers and then immediately place a call. 
 
 The phone has a quad-core 2.2 GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM and a screen meant to reduce the amount of glare from sunlight. It also sports a 13 MP camera, has advanced image-stabilization software, and includes unlimited photo storage through Amazon's Cloud Drive service. The company also introduced "tangle-proof" earbuds, according to a report from Re/Code. 
 
 There have been rumors for years that Amazon wanted to jump into the smartphone market. The anticipation wasn't lost on Amazon. The company sent invitations to all of its customers -- 60,000 of whom applied and 300 of whom made it in to the event. (It also sent a rather enigmatic gift to reporters set to cover the event: a copy of Bezos's favorite childhood book, "Mr. Pine's Purple House," which focused on the importance of standing out from the crowd.) 
 
 The tech giant has already released a line of tablets to accompany its Kindle e-readers, and even tried its hand at a set-top box. And its growing suite of entertainment options, marked most recently by the release of a streaming music service for its most loyal customers, can make its devices more appealing. 
 
 But smartphones are a whole different animal. While the markets for other consumer electronics can be fluid, the smartphone industry is dominated by Apple and Samsung, which control about 50 percent of the world's market between them. 
 
 Amazon appears to relying heavily on the goodwill it's built with consumers to differentiate itself in that tight market. 
 
 "The most important thing we've done is to earn trust with customers," Bezos said, according to a report from Mashable. 
 
 (Disclosure: Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.) 

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 Amazon's new Fire Phone had to be about getting people to buy stuff from Amazon, right? Of course. Enter Firefly, which turns the Fire Phone into a sort of universal object scanner that'll recognize books, DVDs, or jars of Nutella, and help you buy them—from Amazon. 
 
 This sounds a lot like both Amazon Flow and Amazon Dash tucked into the new smartphone, but with much broader applications: whereas Dash was aimed at groceries and home products, Firefly will recognize pretty much anything. Scan a song, and it'll pop up an Amazon link or an iHeartRadio station. Scan a video game, and it'll show you where to buy it. 
 
 But there's more to it than purchasing. Scan a TV show, and it'll offer a DVD (naturally) but also info about the actors in the scene. It can even scan artwork to pull up the related Wikipedia page: 
 
 ...or scan phone numbers so you can put them in your contacts list, automatically: 
 
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 So how's it work? Basically, the phone takes a photo, scans it for info, and just sends the details it needs back to HQ. There's a dedicated button to trigger it, which makes scanning (and thus, buying) stuff extra easy. 
 
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 And Amazon built Firefly on an open SDK, meaning third parties can harness the feature's power to their own good. Bezos says wine merchant Vivino will use the SDK to tell wine buyers about ideal food pairings and the like. One app that's already using the tech is Myfitnesspal, which can scan, for example, a can of soup and tell you the nutritional info of what's inside. 
 
 Basically, in addition to being a smartphone, it sounds like Fire Phone is like a tricorder for the world around you. If it works in the real world the way Bezos says it will, that's gonna be strange and nifty and futuristic all at the same time. 

 Amazon launched its first smartphone Wednesday, dubbed the \”Fire Phone\” by CEO Jeff Bezos. Shares of the online retail giant surged with the announcement. The new phone offers a 13 megapixel camera and comes with a year of Amazon Prime service for $199 with a two year contract. 
 
 Bloomberg Jeff Bezos 
 
 CEO Jeff Bezos demonstrated a number of features of the new device, including \”dynamic perspective\” a three-dimensional tool that lets users tilt the phone to easily access additional information from maps, or scroll quickly through large documents. 
 
 Amazon\’s smartphone will be carried exclusively by AT&T Inc. . 
 
 Here\’s a recap of the event from Therese Poletti.
– Amazon today unveiled its long-rumored, much-anticipated smartphone, which it's calling simply "Fire Phone." The phone's most attention-grabbing features include a unique 3D display and something called "Firefly," which allows the phone to identify objects, songs, and TV shows. Here are the details, as reported by Ars Technica, Gizmodo, the Washington Post, and MarketWatch: 3D "Dynamic Perspective": The phone can create a glasses-free 3D effect. Four front-facing cameras will track users' heads and adjust the display as they move; that would allow you to look around and under various on-screen features. If you're looking at info overlayed on a map, for example, you could tilt the phone to look under that layer. FireFly: The phone has the built-in capability to recognize millions of objects, songs, and even specific episodes of TV shows, using photos and sound. This can both give you information about them—like, say, which actors are in a show—and, of course, help you buy the item from Amazon. There's a dedicated button for FireFly on the phone, and developers will be able make apps using it. Price: Based on an AT&T product page, the phone will start at $200 with a two-year contract for the 32GB model, or $300 for the 64GB. Mayday: The phone will also boast Amazon's much-lauded on-screen tech support option Mayday. Push a button, and a specialist should appear on your phone in less than 10 seconds. The Specs: The phone will have a 4.7-inch HD display, a quad-core 2.2GHz processor, and 2GB of RAM—all of which are respectable, though there are bigger and faster phones out there. It also has an impressive-sounding 13MP camera with an f/2.0 five element lens. Reaction: As of about 3pm Eastern, Amazon's share price had risen 3% on the news. But the price is higher than rumored, Walt Mossberg notes (at one point people thought it might even be free), and AT&T exclusivity is a downside. Many Twitter commentators noted that FireFly seems like an awfully self-serving feature. Quartz's headline summed up the critique thusly: "Amazon launches a shopping machine and calls it a phone."