Amazon smartphone pictures give developers an eyeful

First came the Kindle. Then the Kindle Fire tablet. Now, Amazon is raising eyebrows again with a smartphone that looks radically different than what many might have expected. 

What are allegedly the first photos of the Amazon smartphone, reportedly code-named Hologram, recently surfaced online. They showed a device that appears to integrate six digital cameras and a 4.7-inch display. 

On the whole, developers on Twitter sounded less than impressed by what they saw, though there was a general feeling that Amazon was going to be a major competitive threat.
 


The Amazon smartphone will allegedly be able to track the 3D movements of its owner's head, a piece of functionality that confused as much as it intrigued. 

 

 

 

Though Amazon clearly hopes to shake up the smartphone market, there were already concerns about what it would mean from a platform and development perspective. 

 

 

And while Amazon's design may have an eye on the future, there was more than one developer on Twitter who suggested the smartphone might be a little too much like what came before it.