[Amazon Fire Phone] Aztecwarrior25:
Generic Rant about fire (and other) phone pricing.

Updates :

For multiple google accounts - simply add them in each individual app - they will show up - I have been able to run 3 emails in gmail, 2 youtube accounts and 2 drive accounts. People have had problems with 2 factor authentication - so try disabling it for some time

Google Maps: Still broken - As far as I can tell, there are some system fonts missing that are compatible with google maps app or the layer that renders the labels is not being configured correctly on the Amazon maps. I tried all combinations of Google maps after 4.4 (froyo) - all are bad to display the label sprites.

Rants [Excuse my grammar] -

First and foremost, none of the smartphone prices charged in the US and Europe actually reflect the value of the phone - Android has always been a race to the bottom in pricing for matching specs. Apple has always held its value due to Apple's tight control of the hardware-software integration and their powerful lobby and lawyers.

This is a billionaires playfield (all our capitalist economy is...) not for measly techies like us to decide. $199 is the approximate price of the hardware ( that is if you believe what the Chinese manufacturers quote is true). Often times the prices for these are fixed by companies who have monopoly or duo poly to protect their business. - For all we know the hardware could actually be made (raw materials + manufacture labor + assembly labor + testing) in less than US $99. If you look at the breakdown of the components- a majority of the money is not actually to parts and labor but to licensing, patents, standards and compliance.

OnePlusOne/Google Aria assembly phone etc projects are being touted to fix this - but honestly I have no idea the real value of the phone until it is manufactured from scratch by a separate country that plays by the rules and does - I do know that the carriers are gouging us by charging $600+ . Samsung dominated the android scene in 2012 and 2013 and now has been decimated by cheap Chinese copycats - In the defense of the Chinese companies, Samsung phones are not worth the $600-$700 price they claim - if the material cost is $200 and you copy pasted the software from S3 to S4 to S5 - there is no justification in higher price.

Apple also manufactures its phones for $200 and sells them for $600+ - "is their software/brand/marketing/support/quality/build/value really worth the rest of the $400?" is a subject that goes beyond the scope of technical discussion . Apple is sitting on piles of cash but refuses to pay its shareholders, employees or manufacture anything in the US. Instead they use litigation and intimidation on anyone that dare copy their design. Which means they are equally gaming the system for their benefit (i.e. the benefits of their elites). Google and Amazon and to some extent Microsoft are also tied in the same game - neither company actually has any correlation to what they charge for the good and services they provide v/s its actual value of those goods and services (the same statement is mostly true for any very large corporation)

Bottom line is that worry about the value/cost you are paying for your happiness in the device/Phone. There is no point in bragging about $900 note4 or $700 iPhone6Plus for 0 down or an unlocked Xiaomi for $250 or unlocked nexus for $400. Amazon quickly realized that nobody is going to pay $600 for a $200 device - What is stupid of Amazon is that they didn't learn from Apple Maps failure and Windows Phone failures. Just like these companies gouge us to maximize the profits of their elites - we have every liberty to not fall for their gimmicks and satisfy our needs by maximizing our value without breaking acceptable ethical laws/rules.

For Amazon (and consumers), the future of the Ecosystem is important - For the North America market at least - Amazon (Kindle + Prime + Fire TV + Instant Video) all running on AWS is a good content alternative to the counter the hegemony of Google and Apple. As newspapers, books, TV and music/entertainment industry (traditional) become obsolete - the tech companies, apps and new content will be replacing the void left by the now obsolete media.

Both Microsoft and Amazon have aim to be a 3rd alternative to Android and iOS to fill the void. So I would consider this fire phone just a giant experiment by Amazon to get a feel of the public mood with its ecosystem for phones.