Google Play Market on your Kindle Fire HD

I recently received a Kindle Fire HD 10.1 5th Generation tablet for Christmas.  I love the device and the price put it in the range of a nice Christmas gift to me.

I immediately wanted to start setting up a few things and customizing it.  The kindle however locks you out of just about everything.  I'm sure that is due to all the baked in advertising.  Even with the version that doesn't have the ads on the lockscreen I still see tons of advertisements in the launcher. I can turn off the ads but I cant change the launcher.  Reading around it seems the way to go is rooting the device.  I'm familiar with doing that but really preferred to not have to do that since this is really for casual surfing, books and media entertainment.

So putting the launch screen and lock screens aside I started to load in my standard apps.  Most were on Amazon however at least 30% of them were not.  Seriously Instagram is not available for the Kindle HD?  I also can't load Vudu?  This pissed me off.  So I started reading about how to download the APK using these shady websites, etc.  Not cool.  I needed a better way and I found one that works great.

You will need to have a smartphone or other device with access to google play.  This was simple I used my phone.

Now you need to download 2 applications to your smartphone or other google play accessible device.

APK Extractor
Send Anywhere

Next go to your kindle and install Send Anywhere on the Kindle.   Once you do that you need to enable APK's from 3rd party sources.  Google the instructions for this there must be 20 of the same articles about that already out there.  Once you have that enabled you're all set for installing any Google Play app on your Kindle.

Use APK Extractor to extract all the apps you want to transfer.  I found that almost everything worked right out of the gate.  The extractor will not harm any installations.  It just builds the APK file.

Once you have your apps all extracted fire up Send Anywhere.   Click send on the app and swipe over to the "files" tab.  Select that and you'll see your files.  Scroll down to apks (the default directory for APK Extractor).  Navigate into the folder and select all of them to send.  

Once you click Next in Send Anywhere you'll get a code.  Fire up send anywhere on the kindle and enter that code.  You'll see the files instantly start transfering to your kindle.

Once it is done simply click the APK file right inside Send Anywhere.  It will fire up the installer and presto, you install the app.

This was VERY simple and repeating this process is easy.  I found almost every application worked.  The few that didn't were ones like lock screen replacements or launchers.  Instagram, Vudu and nearly everything else worked great.

Hope this is helpful for those of you who like the kindle but wish the appstore had more to offer.  Now it does through the Google Play market. ;)

Facebook Home or Facebook Fail?

All the buzz lately in the media seems to be about Facebook Home.  Leaks from everywhere was reporting a Facebook phone.  Zuckerberg eventually announced a less than spectacular FaceBook home instead.

Below is the "Airplane" commercial that Facebook is running.  Like most car commercials this doesn't really tell you much about what Facebook Home is.  In fact this commercial was largely useless except to perhaps convey that most people ignore the stewardess to turn off their phones.


 

So what is Facebook home?  It's an Android home screen replacement.  There are plenty of home screen replacements and I have tried a few like Go Launcher EX.  I honestly cant find a good use for them.  Most seem to cause compatibility issues with widgets or eat CPU and battery life.  Then trying to uninstall one sometimes is a complete nightmare.

Facebook home is just another home screen replacement.  The concept is that you are such a Facebook junkie that you need to have Facebook the overwhelming application on your phone.  Which is exactly what you get.  All your google apps and widgets are shoved in the closet while Zuckerberg takes the main stage on your phone.

The big features you get with Facebook Home are:

• Cover Feed - unlock your phone and see your facebook news feed
• Chat Heads and Messenger - I don't get this, it claims you can chat in the background while doing other things.  Couldnt I do this already with IMO or the standalone Facebook messenger app?
• Notifications - Facebook annoys you until you acknowledge your updates.  (I hate this feature on the web already why do I need to be annoyed on my phone too)
• App Launcher - The ability to actually doing something productive. 

And the Google Play rating for this app?  2 stars!

Why oh why would you want this on your phone.  Don't get me wrong here I like Facebook as much as the next guy but so much that I'm willing to convert my home screen to it?  Hell no. The advertisements portray this Facebook nirvana where photos of your friends and family are sending you photos and sharing all of life's great moments. 

Lets face it, what you are really going to see on your phone most of the time will be a memes of cat's, dogs, babies and Obama. 90% of the Facebook posts I see are random garbage.  In fact I've completely removed people from my friends list because of the sheer volume of repostings that take place.  The last thing I want to do is open my phone and see a picture of some kid holding a sign that says they are the 1% of americans that eat ramen noodles while standing on their head.  

When I go to make a phone call this is the last update I want to see on my home screen:

The whole idea of your home screen is to allow you to customize it and get you access to your apps.  Facebook thinks that the only app on your phone worth anything is Facebook.  I hear people say "Finally a home screen focused on people".  If this is the type of poeple you want to focus on, then have at it.  I always thought getting to your apps easily was focusing on you.  I am sure there are are a small percentage of users who love Facebook that much but I don't know a single one.  So for me, this was a serious Facebook fail.  2 stars on the Play store with over 8K reviews seems to confirm what I already knew. 

IMO Messenger - Great mobile Skype replacement

Like a lot of other Skype users the mobile app sucks.  Even on my Samsung Galaxy Note II the darn thing is slow as molasses.  I ran into IMO though which works very well and integrates all of my messaging into one app.  So far I have no complaints.  Check out IMO Messenger

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