Dear Amazon: How’s it Going with Android?
The initial impression on everything that Amazon unleashed yesterday is so far impressive. Though the new Kindle Fire seems a little behind specs-wise (no camera, microphone or 3G), it’s even-handed $199 price tag and integration with their existing web services makes it a worthy choice for many consumers. Kindle Fire runs on Google Android, however, the operating system wasn’t mentioned at all during the reveal.
It’s still unclear whether the OS is Froyo 2.2 or Gingerbread 2.3.4 or a combination of both but for sure, the tablet doesn’t run Android’s tablet-only OS Honeycomb. Based on what we’ve seen, Amazon is likely to ditch the rest of Android’s offerings. They already have everything else lined up from their existing web services. No other tablet company has a strong web offering to tailor unique experiences the way Amazon can.
People say there’s no tablet out there like Kindle Fire. As ReadWriteWeb’s Dan Rowinski puts it, “The Kindle Fire is everything that the Motorola Xoom is not.” If it isn’t anything we’ve seen before, what apps will it run? If Amazon will optimize Android 2.2 apps to run on its 7-inch screen, are they planning to upgrade to Android Ice Cream Sandwich? If so, how are they going to stick to the tablet’s smartphone-centric features?
But I think the way Amazon tweaked the OS is one of its strong points. It is Android because they didn’t really change the basics, though it’s not exactly Android either. They built on top of it’s framework, neatly weaving the tablet’s OS into their existing services.
“To say Amazon has done a bit of work on top of Android is large understatement. Just like the Nook Color, there are very few traces of the Android 2.3 you are familiar with, though they do start to pop up as you dive into the browser and Settings menus,” said ThisIsMyNext.
“It’s also worth noting how completely un-Android this Android tablet looks—in the best possible way,” Gizmodo wrote. “But the Fire’s home screen and sub-menus are detailed without being overwhelming, and simply pretty. For its purposes, Amazon’s cooked up something better than Honeycomb (Google’s new mobile OS).”
On top of the app confusion, some bloggers think the Kindle Fire interestingly bears a resemblance with the RIM’s Playbook. It’s maybe because the two tablets have common third-party manufacturer. “It is nearly identical save for the Amazon branding,” says BoyGeniusReport.
However far Amazon’s departure is from the Android OS, Amazon’s still leveraged a powerful ecosystem in order to offer a truly competitive tablet. There’s a growing trend around deeply customized Android devices, minimizing the traces of Android branding or interfacing to separate the device from the OS as a strategic move. It was encouraged for the Amazon tablet in particular, and we’ll only see more companies doing the same with Android in the future. Baidu is another looking to utilize Android for its own purposes, taking in a powerful and dominant OS to extend its own offerings.
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