Amazon-Apple

Image via CrunchBase

Amazon is a sturdy property. Jeff Bezos some have talked as the next Steve Jobs. But 12 years ago it would have been very hard to imagine the two companies would ever cross paths. The two have inexorable moved toward each other's turfs.

Apple-Amazon War Heats Up

Amazon's Kindle App was recently the fifth-most downloaded free iPad app of all time, according to Apple. And Amazon sells a substantial number of iPods and iPhones on its namesake website. ..... Apple and Amazon have a common and key weapon: unparalleled data about their customers, particularly their credit-card numbers.

Will Amazon build a smartphone? How can it not? Amazon should perform a similar price trick as did with the Kindle Fire. That would be an instant differentiator.

But this is not two dimensional chess. It can be argued this is four dimensional chess. Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook. Each has or will have a smartphone. We live in the age of mobile.

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The Facebook Phone

SUN VALLEY, ID - JULY 11: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Laura Arrillaga Andreesen, chairwoman of the Silicon Valley Venture Fund, attend the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 11, 2011 in Sun Valley, Idaho. The conference has been hosted annually by the investment firm Allen & Company since 1983 and is typically attended by many of the world's most powerful media executives. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Facebook coming into the smartphone space is a big deal. I mean, this is hardware. But it perhaps makes a ton of sense. Facebook is likely the top app on all mobile platforms. So might as well.

If Robert Scoble is to be believed, it will be a contextual phone.

The coming automatic, freaky, contextual world and why we’re writing a book about it

Google Now tells you to leave early for your next appointment because traffic is bad. Automatically..... new kinds of apps that will, in real time, hook up to all sorts of databases about us and the businesses we buy from or work for, and bring us back interesting smart alerts and more.

Facebook Is Said To Work With HTC On Mobile Phone For Mid-2013

Asked in an interview at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, about his greatest challenge right now, Zuckerberg said it was “the shift to mobile.” .... Facebook could use a modified version of Android for its smartphone.

Related articles

• Facebook Is Said to Work With HTC on Mobile Phone for Mid-2013 - Bloomberg

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• Facebook and HTC smartphone collaboration set for 2013 debut, says Bloomberg West

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• Report: Facebook partnering with HTC for Facebook phone, set for 2013 release

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• Facebook reportedly working with HTC on mobile phone

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• Will Mark Zuckerberg Really Launch The Facebook Phone?

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• Facebook phone reportedly set for 2013 release

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• The Facebook Cortex

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• Mobile 3.0: Scoble Cracks It

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• Facebook is working with HTC on a mobile phone for 2013 release, reports Bloomberg

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