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The Vergecast

Version History: Fire Phone

The Vergecast

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Tech News, Technology

4.44.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2014, the tech world was abuzz with the prospect of a phone made by Amazon. When the Fire Phone arrived, it was chock full of ideas — a "dynamic perspective" feature that created 3D illusions, an image-recognition feature called "Firefly," and many, many opportunities to buy Amazon products. Allison Johnson and Sean O’Kane join David Pierce to discuss why, unlike Amazon's successful e-readers, this device was a gigantic flop. If you like the show, ⁠⁠subscribe to the Version History feed⁠⁠ to make sure you get every new episode. Subscribe to The Verge⁠ for unlimited access to ⁠theverge.com⁠, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ⁠ad-free podcast feed⁠. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to ⁠[email protected]⁠ or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey there, I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am about to play you another episode of our new show, version history.

0:04.7

All about old technology and the most important moments and products in the history of tech.

0:10.5

If you like the show, please make sure to subscribe to version history wherever you get podcasts,

0:15.1

or you can find it in the Verge channel on YouTube.

0:17.4

Hit us up with all of your feedback. I hope you enjoy.

0:20.2

It's 2010-ish. The iPhone is a huge hit. Android is starting to dominate the global smartphone market.

0:26.6

Those phones are boring. When you squeeze on the side of them, nothing happens. When you go to take a picture, they only have one camera or two cameras.

0:35.6

They don't have five or six, and you want five or six.

0:38.5

You also want, when you kind of lean off to the side, you want something to happen on your

0:43.2

phone, and nothing is happening on your phone.

0:45.4

Plus, let's be honest, aren't phones mostly for shopping?

0:48.8

Put all of this together.

0:50.4

And of course, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, decided he just had to do something.

0:56.1

And that's something.

0:57.2

It's called the Fire Phone.

0:58.9

From the Verge and Vox Media, this is version history, a show about the best and worst and strangest and most important products in the history of technology.

1:07.8

Today, we are going to talk about a whole bunch of bad ideas about how to build a smartphone.

1:22.0

Oh, hey, welcome to gift wrapping. Whoa, Zoe Saldana. Hey, can you wrap these please?

1:27.0

Wow, iPhone 17s. You splurged. At wrap these, please? Wow, iPhone 17s.

1:28.6

You splurged. At T-Mobile, you can get four iPhone 17s on them. It's the perfect gift for everyone. I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe. Well, it's better than socks. So I have to trade in my old phone, right? No, at T-Mobile, there's no trade-ins needed when you switch. keep your old phone or give it as a gift.

1:45.9

Incredible.

1:46.8

In fact, wrap up your old phone or give it as a gift.

...

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