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It was always available unlocked. Of course then it cost $650 (including 1 year of Prime).
It was admirable that they wanted to compete head to head with iPhone, but they needed to ship this in 2013, not a couple of months before the iPhone 6, which by then was what everyone was waiting for. It was simply too late to market.
But I also think Amazon was delusional about their ability to sell a lot of these the first year out. They should have expected to lose money (and a lot of it!) entering an already very competitive market, and use the first months as a way to learn, refine, and re-target the next device so as to do better in subsequent years. The 'long term view' that normally characterizes their business decisions seems to have been lacking in this case.
Assuming they are not going to continue in the smartphone business, I think it calls into question the premise for the Fire platform. Maybe they don't need a great app store, but smartphones are what app developers want to target first, since those get heaviest use and go everywhere and are more numerous, as compared to tablets. I think Amazon App Store is becoming a lower priority for developers over time, and it's going to fall behind even Windows app store in that ranking.
And yes, the Fire Phone has pretty much sidelined my HD6, which I thought was fine for quite awhile. But now it feels too heavy, battery drains too fast (even when it is just sleeping) and takes too way much time to recharge.
I think we can at least expect a replacement for HDX7 this fall. When the heck will they ship a LiquaVista device?
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