There have been rumours that Amazon is working on a smartphone for some time and a new report, from the Financial Times, has resurrected the speculation by claiming that HTC will be working with Amazon the device – or rather a series of them.
There are reportedly three phones in development with one of these “at an advanced stage of development” but the Financial Times report cites a source as saying that the phone that is closest to release may not ever see the light of day.
Though unconfirmed, HTC would seem to be a fairly sensible choice for Amazon if they were looking to partner up with another company to get into the smartphone market. Facebook and HTC collaborated on the HTC First, which featured Facebook’s Home interface. Although the handset didn’t do too well, as Ars Technica points out, HTC has some experience in partnering with semi-related companies and Amazon’s tablets have proved that the company knows its hardware and software. It isn’t all upside if the rumours are true however. The Ars report also mentions that working with Amazon on an handset which likely features a forked version of Android might draw flak from Google’s Open Handset Alliance, which holds the reigns of the Android ecosystem for smartphone manufacturers.
HTC and Amazon declined to comment on rumours of possible handsets in development when questioned by the Financial Times.
Source: Ars Technica