Learn how to install the Google Android application market on your Kindle Fire:
With plenty of thanks to those techy uber geeks over at the XDA-developers forum, we give you the low down on how to get your very own Android marketplace on that brand new Amazon Kindle Fire you just bought!
Amazon Kindle Fire Android Tab With No Android Marketplace Access:
OK, we can see why this could be considered confusing. You bought your new Amazon Kindle Fire after researching for a short period of time and after unboxing and playing with your new toy for a while you went to buy some apps from the Android marketplace, and at this point you realised it was not quite the tablet you had in mind.
You really wanted to gain access to the Android market you use on your Android based phone for apps but realised that when it said the Amazon Kindle Fire was an Android based tablet, you perhaps missed the point that it was only “based” and did not run quite like the Android tablets you are used to seeing.
You see on the Kindle Fire the app marketplace is within Amazon’s own eco-system, not Google’s. Now come on, think…why would a savvy retailer offer you such a great deal?
Because they want to get you by the sort and curlies once you decide you want some more content/apps/videos etc etc, and keeping you tied into their own marketplace ensures that process and monetization is a long standing relationship…bit of a quid pro quo really as the entry fee to this technology is so reasonable.
Well fear not!
Thanks as mentioned to the guys and girls (though I sense mainly guys) over at the XDA forum. Here is the process to gaining root access to your new device and then installing the Android Marketplace.
Warning – Not that easy – But hardly rocket science:
Be warned, any changes/alterations you make to your Amazon Kindle Fire will likely result in your warranty being affected and your device not working as expected.
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- Step 1: Download the GoogleServicesFramework.apk. This is to allow your rooted Kindle Fire to access Google Services. Best way to do this would be to download the whole Google Apps .apk package here. Then extract the GoogleServicesFramework.apk file from the GApps.rar folder archive using a free archive tool such as WinRAR.
- Step 2: Now download the Vending.apk file (version 3.3.11 is latest) this is essentially the Android Market application.
- Step 3: File management application needed: This is to modify read and write permissions on the routed android device, get this package here.
- Step 4: Using a Micro-USB cable transfer the .apk files to the Kindle Fire. Download and install the File Expert app, giving this application “superuser” permissions by simply opening the application and tapping the menu key, looking for the settings menu and opening File Explorer settings and then enabling the Root Explorer option, this will allow you to modify the app’s read and write permissions and thus allow and Android Market app to download and install the Android market applications on to your Amazon Kindle Fire.
- Step 5: With the FileExpert app open, select the GoogleserviceFramework.apk file, and tap to install. After this has completed go back to the Vending.apk pressing and holding this to open the file menu. Select the cut option, and after this navigate to the application folder inside your System folder. Tap the Menu key, open the Mount menu, and mount the App folder as Read-Write. Finally, tap the Menu key again and press Paste to copy the Vending.apk file into the App folder.
- Step 6: Now that you’ve moved Vending.apk into the App folder, tap and hold it to bring up the file-options menu, and select the Permissions option. Change it to match the permissions of the other apps in this folder, which should be: Owner – Read/Write, Group – Read, Others – Read. Once you’re done, tap Vending.apk and install it.
- Step 7: Reboot your Kindle Fire. You do this to ensure you can actually see the Android Marketplace launcher in the carousel, so you’ll need to download and install a custom launcher such as GO Launcher EX. Another way you can achieve this is to download and install the MarketOpener.apk, a custom .apk file provided and written by XDA Developers forum member munday. This will put a shortcut to the Android Market in your Kindle Fire launcher.
- Step 8: So, After logging in to your new Amazon Marketplace account using your Gmail address welcome to your new app store. I hope that this was not too difficult and would ask you to consult the people mentioned and credited right at the top of this page and throughout if you run into difficulty.
- Step 9: Crashes: It does appear that rebooting your Kindle Fire should stop issues when the device freezes which I am hearing is a common theme after this process has been done, but only when accessing the Amazon Marketplace and downloading apps (which is also apparently quite slow at times)
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We hope you enjoy your new Amazon Kindle and its new found access to another marketplace. Please do let us know how you find running the device using this method, though we can not personally help you out technically. Thanks again to the guys at XDA-Fourms for all the hard work.
Anthony Munns