Amazon has entered the smartphone arena with the Fire Phone, a device that is built around 3D navigation. However, the most important aspect of the Fire Phone might not be the six cameras found on the device, but a feature called Fire Fly.
What makes Firefly such an important feature is that it is capable of taking business away from traditional brick and mortar stores, and increase Amazon's core business which is online retail. With Firefly, users can simply walk into a store and take an image of a product they might want to purchase online.
Once Firefly recognizes the image, it would then bring up the product on Amazon's retail website with pricing and availability, and from there users can purchase the item. Additionally, users can even take an image of a shirt worn by their favorite actor in a movie and purchase it from Amazon.
Furthermore, the new Firefly feature can also recognize music. If users are listening to this awesome new song on the radio and they have no idea what it is called, they could simply use Firefly to listen in, and from there the name of the song should pop up on the Fire Phone along with the option to purchase.
What Amazon is doing with Firefly could no doubt change the way we shop and place more pressure on brick and mortar stores. However, while we do applaud Amazon for its effort, Firefly is by no means nothing new. We saw it before several times and years ago before now on the Windows Phone platform.
Using the Bing search feature, Windows Phone users can take an image of an item and watch as the platform provides several options where users are able to purchase device, along with price and availability. In addition, the feature can also tell which song is being played on the radio or at a party.
Still, while Firefly is nothing new, it is the integration and seamless of use that counts. From what we can tell, Amazon has done a far better job than Microsoft in that regard, the only downside is, users are forced to see prices from Amazon's online retail stores.
Firefly in its current form has a long way to go, though its success is highly dependent on the Fire Phone being a hit. If that doesn't happen, then we can count on Amazon to create a Firefly app for other platforms.
