UKC

I found my old Kindle Fire HD (colour screen, internet-enabled) which I don't really have a need for as I prefer paperbacks and I own a laptop, however I'm doing some simple-app building and the Fire HD is a nice size to sample it. The problem is this tablet can only operate Amazon apps and I am looking to make an app that runs on iOs and Android.

Does anyone know if I can completely re-hash the tablet to run custom-built apps? The only other option is to re-cycle or sell it for about a tenner...

First thing I did with my wife's kindle was stick google play store app on it (there's a few other components you need to install first - do an internet search for what).  But really, you probably need to be using the various virtual devices/emulators to do most of your inter-device testing of your app, which will come with your IDE.

I think you should be able to push in-development apps to the tablet using ADB in a similar way to any other Android device. Amazon have some instructions here:

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-tablets/connecting-adb-to-device.htm...

Actually, if your app supports the android version that the kindle is running (and it's quite likely it will) then you can simply stick your apk on a webserver somewhere and download it onto your kindle which will then install it - provided you turn on "allow apps from unknown sources".  I do this all the time for apps I develop.

You still want to use the emulators to do most of your testing on your desktop.

No offence to Luke - not sure what his development background is, but I don't think his suggestion of attempting to use the adb is a good solution for your specific circumstances.

Why not? I've not done any pure Android app development, the only very limited experience I had was using an AR framework. That offered the option to push and run the current state of the code over USB, which felt like way less of a faff during development than making, transferring and installing new APKs all the time. My understanding was that ADB offered similar convenience.

Though because it was AR, testing on an emulator wasn't really an option at all, so perhaps for a more conventional app I wouldn't have needed to do on-device testing nearly as often.

Oh well, after 5 years of "pure" android app development what would I know?  If you are developing an android app then you need to test against maybe 10 or so versions of android against a whole range of device sizes and screen resolutions. You won't have access to all these devices  This is why you use emulators.  Testing on actual devices isn't done "all the time" in my experience in the sense of "make a small code change, see what happens" - this is done on the emulator.  Testing on physical devices tends to occur at milestones when a significant bit of functionality has been added.  The adb is great as a bridge to a physical device for remote debugging on that specific device, but it can be a pain to set up especially on the kindle fire, and the OP is (presumably) a newbie else the question wouldn't have been asked.

Installing an apk on a device isn't more of a faff than doing it via a usb and adb (in my experience considerably less), especially if you are doing it for 3 or 4 devices at a time.  Hitting a link from the browser then saying "yes" to the install prompt takes about 5 seconds.

But as I say, after 35 years of professional software development (mostly of a deeply technical nature) what would I know over someone with the power of google.  Thanks for reminding me why I never contribute to these threads on stuff I actually know about - I won't bother again.

If you bothered to read my post rather than just sneer at it, I explained why I wasn't able to use emulators.

Not sure why you're reacting as if I disagreed with you or tried to claim that I knew more than you. I offered OP a valid solution to his problem at a stage when nobody else had bothered*. You suggested my solution was bad and I asked why out of curiosity, being entirely open about the fact that I only have extremely limited relevant experience. You didn't initially offer any justification for why ADB was a bad idea, just a vague implication that I must be an inexperienced idiot for suggesting it.

*Your first post just told him to use emulators, which is certainly useful advice but largely sidesteps his main question about whether he can get any use out of the Kindle.

Despite the unnecessary posturing about your vast experience, at least the OP now has decent explanations of what his options are. If I hadn't had the breathtaking arrogance to contribute to a thread that a 35-year expert had already definitively answered then you wouldn't even have told him how to get his app onto the Kindle at all, it would just have ended at "use emulators". Now he has the emulator advice and two different options for using the Kindle. One of them the babbling of a barely literate simpleton who occasionally gets lucky by mashing his keyboard on Google, sadly, but we can't have everything.