Amazon just announced its long-awaited Fire Phone, and the company is taking a shot directly at one of Apple's perceived weaknesses by offering free unlimited photo storage on Amazon Cloud Drive. It matches what appears to be an impressive camera on the new phone, and is an easy way for the company to immediately differentiate itself from the competition. With smartphones having become a de facto way for people to take photos, storage has become a real issue, particularly when they're not being backed up to hardware devices on a regular basis. Apple announced a host of upgrades to the Photo app in iOS 8 just last month, but even then free unlimited storage wasn't on the table: for iCloud, Apple users get 5GB of storage for free, but anything after that they'll have to pony up, with prices starting at j99 cents a month for 20GB, or 200GB for $3.99 a month (higher tiers are also available, but even then Apple's plans max out at 1TB).

It's not clear yet whether Kindle Fire tablet owners will also get the free storage or how it will integrate across devices, but it's a clear sign that Amazon is laser-focused on delivering customers the features that they want at as low a price as possible, even if that price is free.

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