Ten Ways to Amaze with Your Amazon Fire Phone
- 1: Get Your Move On (Tilt)
- 2: Take Unlimited Pictures
- 3: Speedy Photo Access with the Photo Locket
- 4: Powerful Photo Editing
- 5: Firefly: Your Fire's Magic Wand
- 6: Send Text and Documents to Your Fire or Kindle
- 7: Store All Your Cards in Your Amazon Wallet
- 8: Easy Instant Video Viewing
- 9: Find Your Lost Fire Phone
- 10: Fire Phone and Fire TV: A Perfect Match
- You're on Your Own Now: Find More Features!
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
Like this article? We recommend
You've probably heard about some of these marquee features of the Amazon Fire Phone:
- Dynamic perspective allows your Fire to display different information, depending on your head's position when you're using the phone.
- If you turn your head slightly, Peek displays additional information, such as Yelp reviews on Maps and the status bar.
- The lockscreen uses dynamic perspective to create the illusion of depth, making your Fire feel like a window onto another world.
- Firefly recognizes all sorts of things, including songs, movies, and printed URLs and email addresses. Just point your phone and be amazed!
- The Mayday feature is used in demos to really impress people. With two taps, you're connected to a live Amazon support person. Really! You can see and hear them, and they can hear you—and see your Fire's screen. They can help with questions about your Fire's settings, using apps, and more.
I'm a serious fan of the physical design of the Fire. It isn't a giant phone, like many companies are releasing these days; instead, it feels good in my hand. Importantly, given the first item on my list of “10 cool things” below, the Fire also doesn't feel like it's going to slip right out of my hand.
The Fire has a dedicated physical camera button. Press it to launch the Camera app, and you won't miss that special moment while fumbling with your phone's interface.
Apps, movies, books, and music are widely available for the Fires—plus you get a free month of Amazon Prime when you order a Fire—but best of all you get the top 10 features I discuss in the rest of this article.
1: Get Your Move On (Tilt)
Tilt your wrist right or left while holding your Fire, and menus appear with options. Tilt again, and the menus slide away. Flick your wrist, and the settings and notifications appear. The Fire supports a number of gestures that makes using it with one hand a joy—unlike some of the super-large smartphones on the market these days. One of my favorite gestures is “tilt to scroll,” which works in the web browser and the Book app. As you increase the tilt, the Fire scrolls faster, with an arrow icon displaying both the speed and direction of the scroll. Reverse the tilt to scroll in the opposite direction. You can also replicate all these functions by using swipes with your finger, if you aren't into tilting.