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I'll be the first to ask: Why not on Android? What does this strategy get them? Are they afraid of cannibalizing Fire sales? It would seem to me that this woul

I'll be the first to ask: Why not on Android? What does this strategy get them? Are they afraid of cannibalizing Fire sales? It would seem to me that this would be a short-sighted concern, given the number of Android owners out there that would happily pay for Instant Video (myself included). I don't think the higher-ups at Amazon are slow in the head, so I assume they have some reason for this, but I can't think of it.

w1ntermute 14y ago
Amazon Instant Video is the only advantage a Kindle Fire has over a Nexus 7. Without that, there's absolutely no reason to buy a Kindle Fire.
- kungfooey 14y ago
  I completely agree with you. But are they really selling enough Kindle Fires to make up for the potential purchases from the Android legion?
- palebluedot 14y ago
  I agree. However, the Kindle Fire exists primarily to facilitate sales, including video sales. I don't understand why they are so passive aggressive towards Android users who do not buy the Kindle Fire, but want to rent videos. Honestly, as an Amazon prime subscriber, this dismissive Android treatment diminishes the value of Amazon's ecosystem for me.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    > I don't understand why they are so passive aggressive towards Android users who do not buy the Kindle Fire, but want to rent videos. Because on a Nexus 7, you might also go to the Google Play store to buy books, music, or videos. But Amazon has removed that from the Kindle Fire.
    - palebluedot 14y ago
      Because on a Nexus 7, you might also go to the Google Play store to buy books, music, or videos. But Amazon has removed that from the Kindle Fire. That is the madness of which I speak. Because they are afraid that if I don't use the Kindle Fire I won't buy videos, they therefore won't let me buy videos unless I use the Kindle Fire. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. That same logic would call for them to not have a Kindle app on the Nexus 7, would it not?
      - w1ntermute 14y ago
        Well, most people don't know/realize all this stuff. Even a lot of the people on HN don't realize that you can get almost all of Amazon apps on non-Amazon tablets until you explicitly point it out to them. Like I said before, the Kindle Fire gets a lot of exposure due to its prominent position on Amazon's home page. This makes it much more likely that they'll get a lot of sales from consumers who don't really do much research. This is especially true during the holiday season - you don't do nearly as much research when buying something for somebody else as you do when buying something for yourself. Even then, like you said, there's a certain lack of logicality in Amazon's decisions. Then again, they haven't been in the mobile device market (as an OEM) for too long, so it's not entirely impossible that some MBA came up with this harebrained scheme for driving sales of content from Amazon's digital stores and got it past Bezos.
        alttab 14y ago
        Actually, there is a good chance that this is temporary. I imagine they took some base stable version of android, and built their services platform on top of that. They have their own ridiculously huge Web Services platform that they want to provide that at a system service level to application developers. To do this quickly, they had to throw out a lot of hardware support both at the system level for things like gyros, hardware buttons, GPS, etc (all the things the iPad and Google Tablets have), to be able to undercut the manufacturing price to an attractive retail market value. There is a good chance their video streaming leverages system services built off an increasingly "Amazon" branch of early stripped down Android code. Once they have their platform, they can focus on rolling back in the hardware and services to support a larger eco-system. Ultimately, I think they are trying to enable a hub to provide all of their web technology through a mobile device. They've chosen android to safe themselves a lot of time plus they aren't OS guys. Now they are the awkward cousin that doesn't have a fully realized value proposition and is semi-cross functional with other devices and more enhanced platform. In fact, developing for Kindle Fire would probably feel a lot like porting an Android app (that was originally written for iOS in Objective C) and designing around the current hardware peripheral limitations (and the fact that "Google" intents would be completely ignored). What they could be betting on is the shear technical force of their infrastructure and web services. If they can bring high-quality content to their users consistently, people will feel the comfort of Amazon more than other eco-systems. This puts Amazon in a weird position because they are competing with Google more than Apple, really. Especially since they chose Android. Google expected making and distributing Android would increase the gravity to their platform, but its totally possible they understimated Jeff Bezos and his ability to leverage it.
- borlak 14y ago
  Looking on the Amazon Kindle store I don't see an app for Amazon Instant Videos, unless it's simply on the Fire by default (and not removable)?
  - larsberg 14y ago
    Yes, it's built-in (there's a "Videos" link at the top, and any videos you start watching show up in the carousel interface).
  - rjv 14y ago
    I've seen an APK for Amazon Instant Videos floating around the XDA forums. It's too buggy to be truly usable on anything but a Kindle Fire but it's definitely a stand-alone app. If you've rooted your Fire, you'll see it sits in your app drawer like any other app.
- larsberg 14y ago
  Having both, I find that the Kindle Fire HD's speakers and feel in the hand are also a bit nicer. That said, the horrible app store and out of date android build get old. More than half of my apps on it are APKs I got from the support staff of the various companies and have to manually update. Since the Google Play store also won't let you just download the APK or run on the Kindle Fire (two play at that exclusivity game!).
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  Amazon doesn't sell phones, though. No clear reason to not support Android phones like they're supporting the iPhone.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    Who knows for how long that will be true though: http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294569/exclusive-amazon-phone-confirmed-could-be-announced-tomorrow http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294569/exclusive-amazon-ph...
- rjv 14y ago
  Does Amazon even really want to sell the Kindle Fire? Bezos admitted that they make little to nothing on the hardware sales. It's just a window into their ecosystem; one that I'd be happy to patronize if it were completely platform agnostic.

w1ntermute 14y ago

Amazon Instant Video is the only advantage a Kindle Fire has over a Nexus 7. Without that, there's absolutely no reason to buy a Kindle Fire.

kungfooey 14y ago
I completely agree with you. But are they really selling enough Kindle Fires to make up for the potential purchases from the Android legion?
palebluedot 14y ago
I agree. However, the Kindle Fire exists primarily to facilitate sales, including video sales. I don't understand why they are so passive aggressive towards Android users who do not buy the Kindle Fire, but want to rent videos. Honestly, as an Amazon prime subscriber, this dismissive Android treatment diminishes the value of Amazon's ecosystem for me.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > I don't understand why they are so passive aggressive towards Android users who do not buy the Kindle Fire, but want to rent videos. Because on a Nexus 7, you might also go to the Google Play store to buy books, music, or videos. But Amazon has removed that from the Kindle Fire.
  - palebluedot 14y ago
    Because on a Nexus 7, you might also go to the Google Play store to buy books, music, or videos. But Amazon has removed that from the Kindle Fire. That is the madness of which I speak. Because they are afraid that if I don't use the Kindle Fire I won't buy videos, they therefore won't let me buy videos unless I use the Kindle Fire. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me. That same logic would call for them to not have a Kindle app on the Nexus 7, would it not?
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      Well, most people don't know/realize all this stuff. Even a lot of the people on HN don't realize that you can get almost all of Amazon apps on non-Amazon tablets until you explicitly point it out to them. Like I said before, the Kindle Fire gets a lot of exposure due to its prominent position on Amazon's home page. This makes it much more likely that they'll get a lot of sales from consumers who don't really do much research. This is especially true during the holiday season - you don't do nearly as much research when buying something for somebody else as you do when buying something for yourself. Even then, like you said, there's a certain lack of logicality in Amazon's decisions. Then again, they haven't been in the mobile device market (as an OEM) for too long, so it's not entirely impossible that some MBA came up with this harebrained scheme for driving sales of content from Amazon's digital stores and got it past Bezos.
      - alttab 14y ago
        Actually, there is a good chance that this is temporary. I imagine they took some base stable version of android, and built their services platform on top of that. They have their own ridiculously huge Web Services platform that they want to provide that at a system service level to application developers. To do this quickly, they had to throw out a lot of hardware support both at the system level for things like gyros, hardware buttons, GPS, etc (all the things the iPad and Google Tablets have), to be able to undercut the manufacturing price to an attractive retail market value. There is a good chance their video streaming leverages system services built off an increasingly "Amazon" branch of early stripped down Android code. Once they have their platform, they can focus on rolling back in the hardware and services to support a larger eco-system. Ultimately, I think they are trying to enable a hub to provide all of their web technology through a mobile device. They've chosen android to safe themselves a lot of time plus they aren't OS guys. Now they are the awkward cousin that doesn't have a fully realized value proposition and is semi-cross functional with other devices and more enhanced platform. In fact, developing for Kindle Fire would probably feel a lot like porting an Android app (that was originally written for iOS in Objective C) and designing around the current hardware peripheral limitations (and the fact that "Google" intents would be completely ignored). What they could be betting on is the shear technical force of their infrastructure and web services. If they can bring high-quality content to their users consistently, people will feel the comfort of Amazon more than other eco-systems. This puts Amazon in a weird position because they are competing with Google more than Apple, really. Especially since they chose Android. Google expected making and distributing Android would increase the gravity to their platform, but its totally possible they understimated Jeff Bezos and his ability to leverage it.
borlak 14y ago
Looking on the Amazon Kindle store I don't see an app for Amazon Instant Videos, unless it's simply on the Fire by default (and not removable)?
- larsberg 14y ago
  Yes, it's built-in (there's a "Videos" link at the top, and any videos you start watching show up in the carousel interface).
- rjv 14y ago
  I've seen an APK for Amazon Instant Videos floating around the XDA forums. It's too buggy to be truly usable on anything but a Kindle Fire but it's definitely a stand-alone app. If you've rooted your Fire, you'll see it sits in your app drawer like any other app.
larsberg 14y ago
Having both, I find that the Kindle Fire HD's speakers and feel in the hand are also a bit nicer. That said, the horrible app store and out of date android build get old. More than half of my apps on it are APKs I got from the support staff of the various companies and have to manually update. Since the Google Play store also won't let you just download the APK or run on the Kindle Fire (two play at that exclusivity game!).
ConstantineXVI 14y ago
Amazon doesn't sell phones, though. No clear reason to not support Android phones like they're supporting the iPhone.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Who knows for how long that will be true though: http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294569/exclusive-amazon-phone-confirmed-could-be-announced-tomorrow http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3294569/exclusive-amazon-ph...
rjv 14y ago
Does Amazon even really want to sell the Kindle Fire? Bezos admitted that they make little to nothing on the hardware sales. It's just a window into their ecosystem; one that I'd be happy to patronize if it were completely platform agnostic.