Kindle fire apps?

[Richard Gaskin]

William Prothero wrote:

 > I'm considering purchasing a Kindle Fire so I can take my books with
 > me on a trip to Spain without fear of losing my iPad Pro, which costs
 > 10 times as much as the Kindle.
 >
 > I'm wondering, tho, if anybody is making apps for Kindle with
 > livecode. I read, in the Kindle reviews, that the Kindle doesn't
 > access the Google App Store. So I'm wondering if the Kindle is a
 > viable test platform for Android apps.

Very much so.  I would consider Amazon's FireOS an essential deployment 
for serious developers.

At 4% Amazon's market share isn't as big as Apple's 25.8% or Samsung's 
15.6%, but it is by far the fastest-growing at 1200% YoY:
<http://marketingland.com/apple-owns-tablet-market-amazon-growth-leader-186803>

Lat year I got the Amazon Fire 7" tablet, which lists for US$49.99 and 
patient people can usually pick it up on sales throughout the year for 
US$39.99.  Amazing hardware for that price point.  Not a top-of-the-line 
tablet for forty bucks, but certainly beyond others below US$60.  I 
don't even like tablets, but I find myself reading on that one often. 
And if you need a 7" Android-compatible tablet for testing, the low 
price makes it a no-brainer to round out your test pool.

Amazon's business model with devices is to sell the hardware super-cheap 
and recoup on content sales.  This makes their devices generally good 
consumer values, but at the cost of convenience for long-time Android 
fans, since Google Play is not installed.

It's possible to install Google Play, but only through a lot of work. 
Few bother. I didn't.

Most consumers will use the device as-is, but not an impediment to 
developers: Amazon's dev site appears at least as easy to work with as 
Google's (Jacque may be able to provide more hands-on feedback on that).

During testing both stock Android and Amazon's rebranded FireOS are 
super-easy to deploy to.  And since the same Android build will run on 
both flavors, the modest time required to set up a dev account at Amazon 
is an easy choice to justify given the size of their audience and the 
smaller number of apps there competing for attention.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com