Amazon CEO promises more devices next year, dodges smartphone talk

Amazon unleashed a volley of new Kindle devices on Thursday and even though they haven't shipped yet, the company's CEO promises there's more to come.

In an interview following the press event, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos skirted rumors about the e-tailer releasing their own smartphone, but pledged more must-have devices remain in the pipeline.

"We will, certainly - not any time soon, but next year we have some more things that we hope people will enjoy," Bezos told AllThingsD. "And it's premature for me to talk about them."

One such device everyone's itching for is an Amazon smartphone, with some pundits even predicting Thursday was the day it would be revealed.

Back in June, TechRadar consolidated all of the Kindle smartphone rumors into one tidy place and there are still plenty of reasons why Amazon may move in that direction.

Invasion of the Kindles

Meanwhile, this week's press conference laid the groundwork for a new generation of Kindle devices, ranging from the Kindle Paperwhite at $119 all the way up to the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD with 4G LTE at $499.

The addition of 4G LTE data, Bluetooth and HDMI output to the Kindle Fire HD seems like the most compelling evidence yet that the company could make the leap to a full-fledged smartphone.

And while Amazon continues to fork Google's Android for its Fire devices, the good news is the company is finally using Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich for this year's models.

Can some form of Android 4.1: Jelly Bean be far behind?

Via AllThingsD