After reading numerous articles, tweets, blog posts praising, condemning, or questioning Amazon’s Fire Phone’s existence, I’ve decided that I am NOT going to buy Jeff Bezos spectacular device (yes, this iLover thinks the Fire Phone is awesome!).
Ironically though I’m not buying Fire Phone for different reasons than what what most geeks are probably arguing about (i.e. yesteryear’s screen resolution or the lack of apps).
A Mutated Jelly Bean‽
After searching the Twitterverse for micro eons I had a close encounter with @MBCrump, who enlightened me that the OS powering Amazon’s greatest creation is in fact based upon a semi-outdated Android OS formally known as Jelly Bean.
“The software is Fire OS 3.5, which is a forked version of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean (or the AOSP, at least). However, Williams insists that there’s very little relation between the two, primarily because Amazon has made so many adjustments of its own that it has plenty of different features and new user interface elements on top.”
Although I’m sure Amazon will solve any security issues that pop up, app developers may opt to focus their attention upon the latest & greatest Android OS first, before making their app “backwards compatible” for Jelly Bean (aka Android 4.2).
Unless startups can raise an army of clones to release updates simultaneously upon 3.5 mobile OS’s (iOS, Android, Windows Phone & Fire OS) then at best I would expect belated app updates upon the beloved device.
Sad Face
Is It Future Proof‽
Since I am not as affluent as the poorest oil tycoon, I tend to buy smartphones with the intention that they will be powerful enough to run my favorite apps 2 years from now.
To my limited geek knowledge iPhone 5S is still the only device that runs a 64 bit processor.
This means that if a developer decides to update the graphics to “Mech Zombies 4: Rise of the Tongue Slashers” many moons from now, then I have little fear that my device can run the app without exploding/crashing.
Although I’m confident that Fire Phone will be powerful enough to run most high end apps a year from now, I’m skeptical that it will survive 2 trips around the sun with the latest & greatest apps at its command.
Hmmmmmm…
For now I’m going to hold off on purchasing the glorious Fire Phone–despite my emo geeks heart strings being plucked by the automagical Firefly, 3D head tracking displays & ninja tilt gestures that would almost impress Steve Jobs himself (key word is “almost”).
That said if Jeff Bezos is able to release a 64 bit smartphone sporting the latest Android OS sizzled by Fire, then the only reply I’ll have towards him will be “Shut up and take my money!”
