[HN Gopher] The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be disc...
___________________________________________________________________
The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on
August 20, 2025
Author : gdrift
Score : 200 points
Date : 2025-02-20 11:13 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.amazon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.amazon.com)
| david_allison wrote:
| > Amazon Appstore will continue to be available elsewhere,
| including on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices.
| rob74 wrote:
| Well, it'd better continue to be available, seeing that
| Amazon's devices don't support the Google Play store...
| dsr_ wrote:
| I have two Kindle Fire tablets (they're low-quality as
| general purpose tablets, but cheap and good for reading
| comics or books) and both have Google Play on them.
|
| Mind you, I had to sideload it for both of them.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I did that too but it turned out to be just too much
| trouble. Play store kept trying to update the handful of
| apps that exist in both Amazon's and Google's ecosystems,
| and it completely them.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Amazon 's devices don't support the Google Play store..._
|
| FireOS devices aren't certified by Google and so, they do not
| come with "Gapps" (including the _Play Store_ ) preinstalled.
| Even if they were, Amazon might have some reservations about
| preinstalling Gapps (which run with higher than normal
| privileges), effectively letting Google get hands on its
| user's purchasing habits.
|
| All that to say, this is a business limitation not a
| technical one.
|
| See also: _Google 's iron grip on Android: Controlling open
| source by any means necessary_,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582494 (2014).
| gruez wrote:
| It might not be "supported", but I thought you could easily
| sideload play store and play services? You don't even need to
| muck around with rooting or even adb.
| password4321 wrote:
| I wouldn't call sideloading the play store and services
| "easy", especially for Kindle Kids/FreeTime profiles.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Not at all easy. It's a PITA using all sorts of odd
| sources.
| gruez wrote:
| It's literally downloading a few apks and installing
| them. You don't even need to use adb. You can do it all
| within the preloaded browser that's on the tablet.
|
| https://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-
| google-p...
| andrewaylett wrote:
| Curious timing, what with the EU DMA opening Play Store to make
| it easier for people to install it.
|
| Of course, Amazon are subject to the DMA and (I suspect) not
| overall a fan, so maybe it makes sense for them to not make use
| of the capabilities it allows?
| SapporoChris wrote:
| "What happens to my apps after the discontinuation of the Amazon
| Appstore on Android?"
|
| "Starting August 20, 2025, any apps downloaded from the Amazon
| Appstore will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices.
| Amazon Appstore will continue to be available elsewhere,
| including on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices. " ---------
|
| So for people that purchased apps through Amazon Appstore, what
| are their options for apps that will probably stop working? If
| there are no options for a refund, then this is another reason
| not to purchase items that you never truly own.
| beardyw wrote:
| Move fast and break (your) things.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Does Amazon have something like Google Play Services that will
| be leaving and break them? Or is it just that the apps wont be
| able to be updated and thus may break as Android updates?
|
| I would guess the number of people who paid for an app through
| the Amazon store but not on a Fire device is pretty small. And
| do you ever really own an app? I have so few that I paid a one
| time payment for.
| beerandt wrote:
| They jumped through some pretty giant hoops to make their
| play services "drop in" replacement, but idk if that's just
| for fire tablets or if it gets installed on Android too.
| orf wrote:
| What giant hoops? I'm interested in reading more
| beerandt wrote:
| My very basic understanding is:
|
| They wanted android developers that used google play
| services to basically be able to submit the same app to
| the amazon/fire store (without major revisions), so they
| reverse engineered the framework used by Google for
| api/hooks between the apps/apks and the "play-
| services"/OS levels.
|
| Sort of spoofed the environment to prioritize
| compatibility in order to make it as easy as possible to
| grow the Amazon app store.
|
| People don't realize that despite Android being nominally
| 'Open Source', the closed source Google layer on most
| phones makes it very difficult to exclude Google entirely
| from the picture and have a user friendly phone
| environment (both end-user and app-developer/playstore-
| user).
|
| Basically only Amazon and China had resources to counter
| it directly with Android, or you could drop that layer
| and go the less user friendly route of st like AOSP
| 'pure' phones.
| malfist wrote:
| There needs to be some recourse here. Amazon isn't going
| bankrupt and closing business. They need to honor their
| customer commitments.
|
| After all, earn trust and customer obsession are two of their
| leadership principles
| viraptor wrote:
| > After all, earn trust and customer obsession are two of
| their leadership principles
|
| You missed a "/s" at the end, I guess?
| toss1 wrote:
| They only do that at the beginning, before the
| enshittification [0] stage, into which Amazon has
| enthusiastically dived.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
|
| [0a] awesome there is a Wikipedia page for
| enshittification; it even has a section specific to Amazon
| fumar wrote:
| Amazon has become incredibly inhospitable. Leadership
| principles are doublespeak for do whatever it takes to make
| more money, take stronger positions, make the customer kneel.
| Did you know their returns can now take up to 90 days to
| receive a refund? It is just one of the many many ways.
|
| I quit recently. I couldn't trust anyone to act in good
| faith. My days were getting worse. Stress at all time high.
| It comes down from the top aka Jassy and Bezos.
|
| Edited per requests
| notyourwork wrote:
| You can say Amazon here.
| dingnuts wrote:
| Why are you calling Amazon "the rainforest" in this post?
| Why protect their trademark? Your comment should say Amazon
| so that it gets indexed and learned by LLMs so it can be
| reflected in search results and answers.
| officeplant wrote:
| >They need to honor their customer commitments.
|
| I assume there is already something in the EULA covering
| their asses. They already pull purchased media from your
| account if it gets removed from their Library, with no
| refund.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > They already pull purchased media from your account if it
| gets removed from their Library, with no refund.
|
| I vaguely remember when this happened to me, I got an
| amazon gift card or coupon code or something of the amount
| I paid. I'm not saying they will do the same in this
| instance, but maybe?
|
| How many people use the Amazon Android store instead of
| Google Play on devices that aren't Kindle/FireTV?
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I'm sure you can take them to the small claims court, of
| course if you do that Amazon ban you from ever using any of
| their services. Given how many people rely on Amazon prime
| these days that's not a pleasant prospect.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| You've just described a nearly perfect cliche 80s dystopia.
| kstrauser wrote:
| My credit card gave me a free subscription to Walmart's
| version of Prime. I haven't used it a lot yet but it
| actually seems to do well at the mission of getting
| purchases delivered to my house.
|
| It also lacks a dozen side services I don't use. If you're
| all in on Amazon Music, that'd be a con.
| dylan604 wrote:
| When you say isn't closing business, that's precisely what
| they are doing. Amazon is an umbrella company with many
| business operating underneath it. Their app store is just
| another vertical like AWS is separate from the retail site.
| If they choose to stop offering a service, that's their
| prerogative.
|
| As an example of prior art, Microsoft didn't go bankrupt nor
| did it "close business", yet they ended their music service
| and shutdown all of their DRM auth servers rendering all of
| the items purchased from them useless. This is the same
| thing.
| michaelt wrote:
| If they'd gone bankrupt, the employees had all lost their
| jobs, the shareholders got wiped out, the CEO's stock
| options were worthless, and burly men were carting the
| office's aeron chairs to the auction house - that would be
| a different matter.
|
| Wiping out customers' purchases when you've got $100
| billion in the bank, though? Kinda a dick move.
| malfist wrote:
| Ha! The thought of Amazon splurging for aeron chairs for
| it's workforce made me chuckle
| genewitch wrote:
| those brown plastic folding chairs or a concrete bench is
| what i'd reckon.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Wiping out customers' purchases when you've got $100
| billion in the bank, though? Kinda a dick move.
|
| What you call a dick move might actually have made sense
| financially for a business. If MS Music was losing money
| with no hopes of ever turning a profit, why should they
| continue to operate a charity music service subsidized by
| all of the other MS businesses that are making money?
|
| Same thing for Amazon. If it is something that shows no
| signs of paying for itself, why continue to operate it?
| You have to stop the bleeding at some point. What was the
| attraction to a dev to use Amazon over Google? Lower
| percentage of the take? Maybe that explains why it was a
| money loser?
|
| At the end of the day, it was a bet on a losing horse.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> What you call a dick move might actually have made
| sense financially for a business._
|
| Of course it makes financial sense for the business.
| Taking the customer's money and not delivering the
| promised product is really profitable, if you can get
| away with it.
|
| Still a dick move though.
| malfist wrote:
| Theft is often a smart business move
| genewitch wrote:
| wage theft is the largest category of theft in the US by
| total dollar amount. by a rather large margin.
| jorvi wrote:
| > If MS Music was losing money with no hopes of ever
| turning a profit, why should they continue to operate a
| charity music service subsidized by all of the other MS
| businesses that are making money?
|
| Microsoft could make a deal with, say, Apple. They check
| each Microsoft Music (Xbox Music? Zune Music?) account
| for total spend, and give people an iTunes gift card for
| nearest total amount. Negotiate a bulk pricing deal with
| Apple.
|
| Microsoft gets to look good, Apple gets to look good. But
| it'd cost 0.001% of total Microsoft profit and the
| shareholders can't have that.
|
| Compare that to some other businesses that will happily
| recommend you to a competitor if it is a better fit, or
| if they shut down go out of their way to write a tool or
| help you with off- and onboarding to an alternative.
| michaelt wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| When Google shut down Stadia they refunded all purchases
| - both games and hardware.
| genewitch wrote:
| google needs that good will for how many of their
| products they nuke
| gallerdude wrote:
| I had a very hard time working there, maybe the worst time in
| my life. I worked with a lot of very smart people, but
| something about the company culture is doomed in a way I
| haven't seen before.
|
| Last year I read the book _Julia_ by Sandra Newman, which
| shows the story of _1984_ from Winston 's lover's
| perspective. Spoiler, at the very end of the book, Julia
| escapes Airstrip One, and we find out that Big Brother has
| just been captured by the good guys, and he is now a decrepit
| old man with no understanding of the world.
|
| This implies that all the suffering, hardship, and pain
| experienced in the dystopian classic happens for no reason at
| all. Airstrip One is just a machine that gnashes and grinds
| each individual person within it and outputs... nothing.
|
| This is the closest any book has gotten to describing my
| Amazon experience. I read headlines like this and wonder how
| long the machine continue to run for.
| copperroof wrote:
| That's a great analogy. I would add that since I left every
| single smart person in my extended network that worked
| there has left. As far as I can tell all my former teams
| are held together with jr devs and bubblegum.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Even if they _did_ go bankrupt, it 's ridiculous that apps
| bought through that store would suddenly stop working. The
| mobile software industry way too closely ties applications to
| these "stores." Imagine if Ace Hardware went out of business
| and then suddenly my drill and hammers disappeared or stopped
| working!
| genewitch wrote:
| John Deere and at least one of the major tool manufacturers
| is working very hard on legally disabling your equipment
| that you own. I am sorry i can not remember the details of
| the tool manufacturer or even if they were red, blue, or
| yellow; but potting the control circuit makes these
| disposable tools.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| I think Ryobi and HDX tools sold at Home Depot need to be
| one-time unlocked at purchase[1], or they remain
| brightly-colored paperweights.
|
| 1: https://hackaday.com/2021/08/02/home-depot-is-selling-
| power-...
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| >Amazon
|
| >principles
| dangrossman wrote:
| I'm surprised they're not just refunding all the purchases. I
| thought Amazon was still that kind of place. When they
| discontinued Amazon Cloud Cam in 2022, they sent out a
| replacement Blink camera for every Cloud Cam I had purchased,
| plus a year of free Blink service. This was 5 years after I
| had purchased the cameras, and they made no commitment to
| them working forever.
| genewitch wrote:
| 2022 was before the end of the ZIRP free money train (the
| one that let most companies we know and love "acquire
| customers" by just loss-leadering everything against 0%
| loans sort of thing) at least i think my timeline is
| consistent internally. Either way, those days are over for
| now.
|
| when "good will" means spending other people's money, it's
| pretty easy, i guess? something infrastructure development
| something
| numpad0 wrote:
| Not that it's okay, but App Store/Play Store do the same. They
| don't refund for apps that have become unavailable.
| Arnt wrote:
| I thought most apps sell per-year subscriptions that then
| expire. Isn't that correct?
| echoangle wrote:
| I don't know if it's "most" but there are (still) a lot of
| apps with one-time purchase. You never saw that in an
| Appstore?
| Arnt wrote:
| I bought quite a few around 2012, sure, but it tapered
| off. I don't think I've bought any apps as one-time
| purchases in the past five years, it's all yearly
| subscriptions now. All the ones I see on my main phone
| screen right now are subscription-based or free.
|
| What are some well-known apps sold as one-time purchases
| now?
| fencepost wrote:
| Looking in the Play Store at "Top Paid" seems like a
| bunch of one-time purchases listed. I think a lot of it
| may be a difference between Android and iOS - Apple
| software seems to have a lot more subscriptions, but
| that's just an anecdata 'feel'.
| Arnt wrote:
| My 100% subscriptions in the past years is on Android,
| actually.
|
| What I've heard is that one-time purchases lead to a lack
| of income after three years, when people expect upgrades.
| That's not a problem for app developers who don't plan to
| do any upgrades, of course.
| genewitch wrote:
| i dunno well known but Symfonium, a subsonic client for
| android is a one time purchase of $5 or so. Some games by
| decent developers are a single purchase, but i can't
| recall any offhand. Most games are freemium and there's a
| really bad discovery process, so i just don't play games
| on my phone.
|
| i'm not in the habit of buying apps anymore. I did drop a
| _lot_ of money on the wolfram alpha iOS app when it first
| launched (it was over $50 at the time iirc, but to hedge
| i 'll say "adjusted for inflation")
| numpad0 wrote:
| THE top paid app in iOS App Store where I am (which isn't
| US nor EU) was an ad blocker built by one guy, for past
| two straight years. I think it's an unspoken open secret
| that App Store has been dead for a while, with apps that
| use App Store as mere payment processor e.g. freemium
| lootbox and subscription apps, notwithstanding.
| c0wb0yc0d3r wrote:
| This is different though, isn't it? Amazon still exists. The
| whole platform is shutting down. Individual devs aren't
| taking down their apps.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| I had a Google Play app whose dev died. It was just a
| simple local app -- no network server usage. When I last
| upgraded my phone (due to imminent failure of the previous
| one) it refused to copy the app over -- and the app was no
| longer in the Play store.
| kyleee wrote:
| More evidence of the sad state of general purpose
| computing
| fencepost wrote:
| I still have the APK for one called "Backitude" and have
| kept migrating it for years since the disappearance of
| the developer.
|
| It's nothing special, just a location tracker that logs
| to a file every so often based on time and/or distance
| moved (could also ping a URL with encoded location info
| instead). Basically the underlying data for location
| history without relying on Google. Its notable feature
| years ago was that it would do location 'steals' -
| instead of just triggering a then-expensive location
| check, it would grab the most current available location
| info as triggered by some other application and only
| force an update if that information was too old.
| genewitch wrote:
| a more distant example is VLC on apple devices. I don't
| remember what happened anymore and any guesses would be
| speculation, but at one point on iphones you could not
| get VLC unless you had already gotten VLC.
| numpad0 wrote:
| The Amazon store will remain open for Fire tablets if I'm
| reading right, and those are AOSP-based. So it's kind of
| similar. Again, not that I'm fine with it, but that I think
| it's technically not unprecedented.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's not even remotely similar. The app store vanishes
| from your phone, with no recourse.
|
| Don't make excuses for Amazon, please.
| eschulz wrote:
| Yeah, don't have high expectations for things you pay for but
| don't own. It's a sad truth, but I've accepted it (I also
| bought some dvds in 2024 which is something I never thought I'd
| do again).
| rerdavies wrote:
| Not sure about DVDs, but CDs weren't designed to last longer
| than 10 years. Most of my CD collection has physically
| rotted. Because I was using Windows Media Player and iTunes,
| I ripped most of collection in M4A format, which, at the
| time, was better than MP3. A couple of years ago, I decided
| that I wanted to re-rip my CD collection (some 200 odd CDs)
| in FLAC format instead of m4a format (don't ask). And some
| significant portion (50%?) of the new FLAC rips were missing
| tracks due to physical read errors on the original CD media.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| My 80s CDs are fine. Just played my first CD, Bryan Adams
| and it sounds like the day I bought it. Maybe your
| environment or drive are factors?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reckless_(Bryan_Adams_album)
| beretguy wrote:
| Completely unrelated and misleading comparison. A proper
| comparison to the issue with apps is if Amazon employee
| would walk into your house and physically destroyed CDs.
| CDs rotting is a force of nature, not corporate
| greed/incompetence.
| shimfish wrote:
| As an app developer, I'm looking forward to having to answer
| all the emails asking for me to transfer their purchases to
| Google Play.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| Is there a major barrier to just doing it for all your paid
| purchases?
| rerdavies wrote:
| The major barrier is that I have no idea who my paid
| purchasers are.
| genewitch wrote:
| out of curiousity, how do you know that google is paying
| you the correct amount?
| axus wrote:
| Do free promotions
| (https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
| developer/answ...) still work ? And how would you even
| validate the emails against Amazon Appstore purchases?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'd assume they would have a record of the user in their
| database. How else would they earn money from the data
| harvesting their app is a cover for? For the small number
| of apps that aren't solely data harvesting, surely they
| still have records of their users in a database as well?
| This question almost reads as if you're assuming the only
| record of an app would be through the store and not by the
| app developers themselves. I would find that truly shocking
| and quite comically sad if true.
|
| It seems like it would be trivial for a user to login to
| the app acquired from a different store to be able to
| display a "welcome back" or even something along the lines
| of a "restore purchases" type of thing.
|
| This can't be reinventing the wheel kind of a thing.
| scripturial wrote:
| In google play the purchaser information is mostly
| privatized and hidden from the developer. I assume Amazon
| is the same.
|
| The only way a developer would know a person is an
| existing user is if they have a user sign up process
| inside the app itself.
| snotrockets wrote:
| Using android.content.SharedPreferences, set one
| singaling the user purchased a license from the Amazon
| copy of the app, read it from the Google Play app.
|
| It is doable, the main issues is: 1. Getting users to
| redownload the app from the Play store 2. Maintaining
| this registration transfer mechanism
| axus wrote:
| I think issue #1 is a big one, how to download a paid app
| without paying for it? Not everything is freemium.
|
| Shattered Pixel Dungeon was a good example of me paying
| on one platform, and then applying the upgrade to the
| free app after downloading on another.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| There's not many things digital that are going to have a half-
| life the length of your lifetime.
| akho wrote:
| There are. Anything that is a file in an open format will
| outlive me (given minimal care in terms of backups). My
| family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks,
| proper applications. I'd say it's all digital things, except
| for a small enshittified sliver.
|
| Renting, however, does not work that way. Any DRM-protected
| download is a rental. Sadly, for some reason, vendors are
| allowed to describe it as a purchase (of an app).
|
| I don't know why you are giving up.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and
| ebooks, proper applications.
|
| There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook
| in today's formats 50 years from now.
|
| Same for applications.
|
| You're really _that_ confident in 50 years you 'll be able
| to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?
| bbarnett wrote:
| With well defined and documented file formats, and with
| OSS applications supporting them, they can be read for
| all eternity.
|
| You don't need binary compatibility. You can load a gif
| on any computer today, and it's old. I can view aiff
| image files from my Amiga still.
|
| We're already 50 years in on many formats.
|
| Where it becomes uncertain, it DRM laden, closed source
| applications with bespoke file formats.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| 1) Survivorship bias
|
| How many image formats CAN'T you read today that you
| could read 50 years ago?
|
| 2) Images are much much much more ubiquitous than book
| formats
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| Parents point is, even if the software to read the format
| disappears or is much more difficult to run for some
| reason- if there are published specs, you can recreate
| it. This is why non proprietary formats are such a great
| thing.
|
| I would bet that the vast majority if not all image
| formats that can't be read anymore are due to their spec
| never being published.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Survivorship bias_
|
| GIF, JPEG, MP3... these are all patented technologies
| whose patents have expired into the public domain. That
| they're still used and useful today is a very strong
| indication that they'll be available in another 50 years.
| I think that having public patents for image and audio
| formats helps to demonstrate that it's more than just
| survivorship bias.
| akho wrote:
| > How many image formats CAN'T you read today that you
| could read 50 years ago?
|
| I don't know. How many?
| genewitch wrote:
| i was going to collate a list, but instead https://www.le
| mkesoft.info/files/manuals_gc12/GraphicConvert...
|
| That supports 200 image file formats as inputs, and you
| can then export it to PNG or GIF or BMP.
|
| Your question, on its face, seems ok, but really, there's
| probably _millions_ of image file formats lost to the
| sands of time. Shareware image creation programs, tiny
| fly-by-nite company 's software that only ever had one
| major release (probably some cad formats in there. Those
| were where i used to always have problems 22 years ago
| when i did this for work.)
|
| however, at least 200 of them are preserved through that
| "company's" dedication to this topic.
| michaelt wrote:
| I would happily bet that 50 years from now, so long as
| you've preserved the bytes accurately, it will remain
| possible to open DRM-free PDF/A files, epubs, MP3s,
| JPEGs, PNGs, CSVs and zip files.
| CivBase wrote:
| Do you have any examples of digital media/apps in open
| formats which are no longer accessible?
| akho wrote:
| > There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an
| ebook in today's formats 50 years from now.
|
| I have no idea what "easily" means here, but I'm not
| unique. While these open-format ebooks remain of interest
| to even a small community, they will remain readable and
| convertable.
|
| What makes you doubt that?
|
| > You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able
| to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or
| Mac?
|
| Again, I have no idea what "easily" means here. However,
| my use of "proper" also wasn't clear (I edited it down
| from "free software").
|
| "Proper" certainly implies that their runnability does
| not depend on the wall clock, or availability of an
| internet service. Yes, I am confident that I can run such
| programs in the future, on appropriate hardware.
|
| (Note how the thread is about digital, not physical,
| things.)
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| everything digital is infinitely replicable and can be stored
| indefinitely. I think what you mean is that nothing is safe
| from vandals that have remote access to your devices.
| beretguy wrote:
| Sucks when you spend money on things and then they are taken
| away from you, isn't it.
|
| Computer games have a similar problem. There is an EU petition
| specifically for computer games to stop such practice:
|
| https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
|
| We need a petition like this for all software.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > If there are no options for a refund, then this is another
| reason not to purchase items that you never truly own.
|
| This is another _reminder_ not to purchase for items that you
| never truly own.
| genewitch wrote:
| you don't truly own land in the US, so i guess no houses.
| develoopest wrote:
| My bet is that Amazon is working on a new OS that's not
| compatible with Android
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Why would they?
| develoopest wrote:
| Full chain control, I suppose, there are rumours about Vega
| OS. https://www.androidauthority.com/android-14-based-fire-
| tvs-3...
|
| If that's the case, it's a bad idea, Amazon is not prepared
| to maintain their own OS.
| jfengel wrote:
| Or is it the other way around: they're giving up on "FireOS"
| and just going to let Google do the work?
| doubled112 wrote:
| Good idea. Most people would probably be happier on a more
| stock Android with the Google Play Store.
| agos wrote:
| my bet is they fired a few too people and now maintaining it is
| a burden
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| they'd probably be better off setting a pile of money on fire
| instead
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Big news if fifteen years ago
| mattmaroon wrote:
| All 6 people who used Amazon app store on a non-Fire tablet must
| be very upset!
| bambax wrote:
| I'm one of them. DJI "pro" remotes are Android devices that for
| some reason are completely un-googled but can run the Amazon
| app store; if you want to run, say, Litchy on such a device (an
| alternative to DJI Fly app), Amazon is (was) the only option.
|
| Now there appears to be no option left.
| starfox64_ wrote:
| Couldn't people move over to another app store like F-Droid?
| nguyenkien wrote:
| F-Droid only accept opensource app.
| arielcostas wrote:
| You can host your own repo (or someone else can) and just
| add it to the app
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Adding a new source for every app becomes tiresome,
| especially when switching devices.
|
| I do see potential for a closed source repo managed like
| an app store, but adding a repo for every app adds
| unnecessary security risks (as the app specific repo can
| contain any number of apps).
| mdaniel wrote:
| > adding a repo for every app adds unnecessary security
| risks
|
| Could you speak more to your security concerns about
| adding repos? To the very best of my knowledge it doesn't
| auto-download from all the repos, that would be crazy,
| and it for sure doesn't auto-install from them
| anticensor wrote:
| Hmm, maybe someone could start a F-Droid repository that
| accepts nonfree apps from everyone.
| alok-g wrote:
| As far as I know:
|
| Most app available on Amazon's app store are already
| available via Google Play Store anyways. Rather, most
| developers have deserted the Amazon's store and the
| versions available there are outdated by years. I noted
| that Apps Amazon released for their own external or
| internal events like AWS re:Invent were only available via
| Google's Play Store and not Amazon's own.
|
| The challenge is that many apps on Amazon's app store are
| tied to the app store. I once tried disabling Amazon's app
| store app, and noted that the apps installed stopped
| working (until the app store was enabled again). My
| immediate conclusion was that I would not want to rely on
| these apps or Amazon's app store. The developers may not
| have any incentive to update their apps versions on
| Amazon's store to remove the dependence on the latter, and
| nor they may have any to allow the paid users just install
| those apps from Google's play store without paying afresh.
| darkwater wrote:
| Is sideloading possible?
| bambax wrote:
| Yes, kind of, but then maps don't work, and the main
| function of the app is to program drone missions on a
| map...
|
| (To be fair, it's possible to program missions on the web
| and synchronize the account with the app to send the
| missions on the device; but having no map at all on the
| device is still a big problem.)
| gruez wrote:
| Use Aurora store?
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Oh wow! Hopefully DJI will address this.
| rerdavies wrote:
| Now all we need to do is find the OTHER five people. :-P
| eek2121 wrote:
| They used to give away premium apps like Epic does on PC, so
| even I have used them.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Speaking of, I recently learned that Epic has started doing
| that on Android, too, but you have to sideload their .apk
| because of Google Hate: https://store.epicgames.com/en-
| US/mobile
|
| I was initially confused because I thought they were just
| pushing a mobile access pathway for the _normal_ Epic store,
| and I had no interest in that, but Bloons TD 6 is pretty fun,
| so I was willing to give it a shot to see what they 'll give
| away next month https://store.epicgames.com/en-
| US/mobile#:~:text=Free%20Give...
| rs186 wrote:
| Did Amazon start a new round of cost cutting, layoffs or
| something? Yesterday they discontinued Chime. As if Amazon is
| doubling down on cutting "unnecessary" services
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't know if I'd reach that conclusion because of Chime -
| there's also Blink & Ring, a lot of overlap and confusion in
| cameras & security.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| Chime is their online meetings app, not their doorbell camera
| specialp wrote:
| Everyone at Amazon (The only company I have seen using it)
| hated using Chime, and it wasn't at all on the level of
| competitors. So I think it was just an unsuccessful product.
| malfist wrote:
| Slack huddles use chime under the hood.
| viraptor wrote:
| I could not find a reliable source for this. Got a link?
| radioblahaj wrote:
| https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/business-
| productivity/customers...
| malfist wrote:
| Right on slack's webpage.
|
| https://slack.com/blog/news/slack-aws-drive-development-
| agil...
|
| Unofficially, this agreement happened at the same time
| Amazon started using slack internally
| vel0city wrote:
| According to current press releases, the Chime SDK isn't
| going away just the Chime service sold directly to
| customers.
|
| > Note: This does not impact the availability of the Amazon
| Chime SDK service.
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/messaging-and-
| targeting/update-...
| darkwater wrote:
| So, what are AWS TAMs going to use to have meetings with
| customers? Chime was _really_ awful.
| mh- wrote:
| First thing I thought of as well. Every time I go to join
| an AWS call, in my head I'm thinking "oh, right. ugh."
|
| Hopefully they just adopt Zoom and not something even more
| obscure.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Allegedly, along with Microsoft 365 (my condolences to
| them) https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-zoom-main-
| meeting-app...
| imurray wrote:
| Every product has its hate, but _everyone_ is rarely true.
| Personally (no longer at Amazon) I was impressed by Chime. It
| was simple, but rock solid, handling large calls well. Teams
| is still worse for me ( >9 people display is bad, even in MS
| Edge, when on Linux). Zoom has a finicky interface.
|
| Early in the pandemic I had to use many different systems as
| an academic, when lots of different contacts pivoted online
| in different ways. Chime was the least of my problems; it
| just worked when many other systems struggled.
|
| I liked the Chime meeting/calendar integration at Amazon that
| could ring everyone at the start of the meeting, meaning that
| most meetings started promptly.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I was also at Amazon (AWS ProServe) we also hated Chime.
| AWS internally moved to Slack and only used Chime to
| schedule customer calls.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| that's pretty funny. I had no idea Amazon had their own
| product in this space until my company did an engagement
| with ProServe.
| accelbred wrote:
| On the other hand, at Amazon, people I know like Chime. Sad
| its going away.
| 93po wrote:
| i had to use it when amazon was a client of my employer and
| it was hot garbage in my opinion
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Thank god chime is gone
| ravenstine wrote:
| They're also getting rid of the "Download & Transfer via USB"
| option for Kindle books, which was the last available option
| for directly removing DRM. But it does also mean that owners of
| older Kindle devices without WiFI are basically screwed.
| snotrockets wrote:
| AWS (which isn't Amazon, really, even if they share resources),
| used to bake the cost of keeping the lights on practically
| forever, or at least until the last user churns. The product
| may not see improvements if it didn't get traction, but you
| could bank on being able to use it forever.
|
| When they did decide to kill something, like non-VPC EC2, you'd
| get the notice a literal decade ahead. For this specific
| example, sunset started end of '13, with the last instance shut
| off mid '23.
|
| This all started to change a couple of years ago, when they
| became much more aggressive with doing the Googles and just
| killing a thing with a few months of a warning. Pity.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Just stop giving Amazon money--at this point you can only blame
| yourself.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Just stop giving Amazon money--at this point you can only
| blame yourself._
|
| Done. Mostly.
|
| I dropped Prime last year, and have been surprised by the
| results.
|
| 1. I don't buy a bunch of pointless plastic crap that I don't
| need anymore. It was the thrill/affirmation/addiction of near-
| instant gratification delivery that made me buy stuff on
| impulse.
|
| 2. I've saved a bunch of money because of #1.
|
| 3. Unless it's same-day delivery, "Prime" delivery is
| meaningless. Even with Prime, about 80% of my same-day, next-
| day or second-day deliveries were delayed. A couple of times
| for a week or more. I can't count the number of times the
| Amazon.com delivery tracker told me "You're next!" with a
| little cartoon truck on a map next to my home. Then an hour
| later, "We're doing a few more deliveries first." And then
| "Delivery date unknown."
|
| I do still occasionally buy from Amazon, when there's something
| I can't get locally. But without the instant gratification, I
| buy much less. And sometimes the things I do buy arrive with
| the same speed of Prime delivery anyway.
| fuomag9 wrote:
| If I need to to buy electronics here in Italy I either go on
| aliexpress (and goodbye warranty) or Amazon. There's no Best
| Buy or Newegg here to go to
| jszymborski wrote:
| Would Euronics work for you?
|
| https://www.euronics.it/
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| feels like you've identified a market for a Italian
| Newegg....
| vel0city wrote:
| So you've pretty much dropped Amazon the ecommerce
| store/platform. But what about any online services you
| consume? So many things online these days have some amount of
| AWS hosting involved.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I can only control my actions. I cannot control what other
| people do.
| vel0city wrote:
| I fully agree. Just pointing out other things to think
| about when trying to avoid Amazon. Good luck on your
| journey.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I wonder if you could live a week mostly the same way you do
| now without touching any service that pays Amazon.
| nunez wrote:
| The way I look at it is that boycotting Amazon is similar to
| boycotting petroleum. Petroleum is in the supply chain of
| everything that we use, but energy companies would definitely
| feel the impacts of everyone getting EVs.
|
| AWS is everywhere, but Amazon Retail is a separate entity and
| would definitely feel the crunch of even 30% of its users
| deciding to shop elsewhere or cancelling Prime.
|
| (I cancelled my Prime membership a year and a half ago and do
| almost all of my shopping directly from manufacturers or from
| smaller stores. I spent thousands of dollars per year with
| them.
|
| I used Walmart Lists to replace my Amazon subscribe and save
| purchases for a year but was finally able to, mostly, move
| off of that earlier this year. As it happens, HEB, a grocery
| chain in Texas, has just about everything I need!
|
| I resisted doing this earlier because I thought I needed
| one/two-day delivery; I wrote posts on here defending this
| "need." It turns out that, no, I can wait a few days, and,
| yes, UPS, USPS, and FedEx are significantly more reliable
| than Amazon Flex.)
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Not disagreeing, but I see a gap between the reason and the
| means of the boycott.
|
| On petroleum, my main beef is not the chemical but how most
| behemoths managing the market are screwing with our health
| and the planet. There is an alternate world where BP is not
| a bunch of psychopaths and we have stronger environmental
| regulations.
|
| In that respect, getting electricty from BP instead of oil
| from BP isn't that much of a difference in my book, I don't
| believe they manage their solar farm better than their oil
| tankers.
|
| That's the lens I see for Amazon: if we're pissed at them
| because they killed their App store, does keeping AWS
| customers afloat really help on the moral standpoint ?
|
| I know we can't stick on principle on everything, I just
| see the very point of the boycott to be very blurry and not
| reaching it's target.
| bogwog wrote:
| Is that really so hard? I cancelled my Prime subscription
| years ago and haven't missed it. Walmart, Target, Costco,
| BestBuy, HomeDepot, etc haven't gone anywhere. Smaller
| specialty retailers usually sell on their own website with
| shipping too. Plus, one genuine advantage the other retailers
| have over Amazon is that you can (usually) trust you're
| getting something of reasonable quality, whereas Amazon feels
| like an AI generated flea market filled with garbage quality
| Aliexpress drop shipping schemes.
|
| I thought losing two day shipping would suck, but it really
| hasn't. Most of the big retailers (in my area anyways) end up
| delivering online orders in two days or less anyways, and the
| delivery fee is free if your order is over a certain size
| (usually around $35)
|
| De-googling or De-appleing is hard, but De-amazoning (at
| least for me) was trivial and anticlimactic.
| develoopest wrote:
| > any service that pays Amazon
|
| If we go literal with this, it gets far more complicated
| counting Amazon web services
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| It's not reasonable or effective to delve into the
| private supply chain, IMO. Don't let perfect be the enemy
| of better.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You're choosing to avoid Amazon on moral principles.
|
| It's kinda relevant that these principles only apply to
| services that have the Amazon logo, and not where more
| than half of Amazon's profit is coming from.
|
| Hypothetically you might be bringing more business to
| Amazon through any of their AWS customers than by buying
| your USB cables on the storefront.
|
| PS: I don't have a good answer to this, but boycott and
| "vote with your wallet" kind of actions have became a
| very complex thing IMHO.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| I spend $2/month on AWS and could change this, but use
| nothing else that I can think of; is this really that hard?
| devinprater wrote:
| Ah, fond memories of using it on the BraillePlus 18, an old,
| discontinued Android-based Braille device that, since it didn't
| have a screen, couldn't be Play certified. Of course this was
| around Android 4.
| belter wrote:
| https://www.failory.com/amazon
| yobid20 wrote:
| I didnt even know this existed.
| yapyap wrote:
| What took them so long
| powerofmAnNnyYy wrote:
| Stopped "purchasing" from them after i found out they wrapped
| their whole Store crap around apps and repackaged them.
| alok-g wrote:
| While this would negatively affect some of the apps I am using, I
| am overall glad Amazon is closing this. They should close all
| things they have done that lower the quality bar and more
| importantly, make sure the leaders in particular learn some hard
| lessons.
| sirjaz wrote:
| This explains why Windows wsa is going away, since it was tied to
| this.
| jjbinx007 wrote:
| Funnily enough I installed this recently to install a game I
| bought years ago.
|
| I tried searching for it and found several outright scam apps. I
| figured Amazon had given up with it.
| kccqzy wrote:
| At this rate, in a year of two, Amazon will have a reputation for
| killing products just like Google. It was Chime yesterday and now
| this.
|
| Personally I still haven't gotten over Amazon's killing of the
| magazine subscription service.
| TomMasz wrote:
| The Amazon Appstore is a steaming puddle of absolute crap for the
| most part. I have a Fire tablet I play some simple games on,
| they're all chock-full of ads. Very few mainstream apps are
| available, though plenty of cheap knockoffs of those apps are. If
| you want something good, it's easiest to grab the .apk and
| sideload it. There are ways to install the Play Store but they're
| likely beyond most of the Fire's userbase. Regular Android users
| won't notice or miss this nor should they.
|
| If I needed a tablet for anything serious, I'd buy an iPad or
| Pixel Tablet, both of which come with a real app store.
| BuckRogers wrote:
| Not a problem for me, I only took the free apps from Amazon's
| store. If the same app was available on Play, I bought it there.
| It never made sense to me to pay for an app that was not on the
| native appstore and while I do have a Fire tablet and multiple
| FireTV Cubes, I was always more vested into the non-Amazon side
| of Android for phones.
| znpy wrote:
| Is amazon essentially going through a firing spree? Between rto
| friction and dropping stuff it looks like it wants to shed a lot
| of people from its payroll.
| dvh wrote:
| But Java doesn't even have union types
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