

Kindle Fire promises to burn Android to the ground - l0c0b0x
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2011/09/30/kindle-fire-promises-to-burn-android-to-the-ground/
September 30th, 2011 by Daniel Eran Dilger
======
Tichy
I think these issues are really overblown. Few apps would use the latest APIs
anyway, since that would exclude a large number of devices from running the
app.

Also of course Google is/was aware that some competitors would chose to remove
the Google apps completely.

------
DrHankPym
I have the opposite impression. Finally a cheap tablet that runs Android apps.
To me, that's an increase in Android user-base, so I'll take it.

------
drivebyacct2
Ignoring the fact that developers can trivially write apps that target Kindle
Fire and regular Android tablets with literally no effort to distinguish them
required?

>That’s because the Kindle Fire will destroy Google’s ability to enhance,
extend and improve Android on tablet hardware, effectively substituting
Google’s ambitious plans with Amazon’s rather pedestrian goals of delivering a
movie playing, basic app running ebook reader that technically “runs” Android
while it figuratively runs it into the ground.

What? A different, modified UI means that Amazon will stop keeping their
common Android codebase in sync with upstream AOSP? That's ludicrous. Is the
author assuming that the Kindle will dwarf all other Android tablets, so much
that devs are encouraged to develop for it (which is _still a subset of AOSP_
) rather than all generic Android devices?

How do people so quickly forget everyone decrying Android's first year as a
phone OS?

~~~
gte910h
This could dwarf other android non-phone sales. There is something about price
points in the low hundreds that _really_ ramps up the device sales.

>Amazon will stop keeping their common Android codebase in sync with upstream
AOSP

They may just stick to 2.2, yes. Ice Cream Sandwich has a huge chance of never
running on these devices except when user installed.

------
barista
Its one of the bnefits as well as perils of open source. And it will benefit
the platform as a whole. Amazon cannot afford to move too far away from the
core android that is developed by Google as it will otherwise lose all the new
apps and capabilities. It will benefir them to follow androd whereever google
takes it.

~~~
mikhailt
It depends on how far they have forked the OS. At this moment, I don't think
Amazon cares about anything Google does. They already have the OS customized
to meet their ends, anything they need, they can extend the OS themselves and
that's what they have done. They are not sharing the code back to Android's
ecosystem, so there are no benefits to the Android platform at all.

One more thing to keep in mind, the millions that'll buy Fire will not see it
as an Android device, they'll see it as a Kindle tablet which is not the same
thing as an Android device.

It doesn't benefit Amazon at all to follow Google, which was what this article
was saying. If Kindle Fire really takes off well, the sales it generates will
lure the developers away from Google toward Amazon as the leader for Android
apps. Developers want to target the largest markets and with Fire, they can do
just that.

~~~
Hyena
Sharing code back isn't the only way to assist the ecosystem. As long as
compatibility is good, the Fire will encourage more app development. It will
also encourage app developmet at its form factor, which might finally start
opening up the Android tablet market.

