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Will the Kindle Fire support third party book proprietary readers like Google Books or Nook for Android by B&N?

  • The Kindle Fire is limited to apps that are available on the Amazon Appstore.  As of now, it doesn't appear that either Google Books or Nook is available there.  One of the benefits of an iPad or any other tablet on the market is that you're not limited to one seller's books (e.g. Kindle, Nook and Google each have readers that work across all other Android and Apple tablets). Will the Kindle Fire have this benefit? or not? I assume that (if the Kindle Fire is hackable -- there is some question on this point) hacking it would permit downloading apps from the Google Marketplace.   So I'm not asking that.  Just asking if it will, without hacking, permit this.

  • Answer:

    According to this Wired article, probably not. There will probably be a Netflix and Hulu app, however. Instead, Amazon is happy to welcome Netflix aboard. At the launch event, Amazon representatives went out of their way to mention Netflix by name: “We’ve had talks with Netflix and Pandora [about developing apps for Kindle Fire], and they’re both very interested,” one told me. “We haven’t spoken with Hulu yet, but I’m sure we will; we have no philosophical objections to having these services on our devices.” By contrast, when I asked a similar question about other bookstores and support for EPUB and other formats in particular, the same representative said, “we sell our e-books in our format. And the Kindle Fire has great PDF support.” So why yes to Netflix and no (almost definitely) to Nook? It’s just good business. Amazon dominates books (electronic and otherwise) and has  no reason to let a serious competitor get a foot in the door. It’s an underdog in streaming video. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/kindle-fire-media/

Jonathan Brill at Quora Visit the source

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I really doubt there will be a Nook app for the Kindle Fire -- and I don't believe there is a Kindle app for the Nook, by the way. Similarly, there won't be an iBooks app for the Kindle Fire; Apple will never submit one. Google Books will also likely not be offered on Amazon's App Store, but it's very possible that Google will never submit it. It's not especially clear Google considers Google Books important. If they prove me wrong here, I suspect Amazon would approve the app. Virtually no one will ever download or use it given how front and center the Amazon / Kindle buying experience will be on the Kindle Fire. Rather than seeming anti-competitive or petty, they could just quietly approve it and let it be. We should be clear, however, that the Kindle Fire is being sold as a loss leader of sorts. Whether you believe they are losing $50 per unit or so as I do (and so does Piper Jaffray http://www.thestreet.com/story/11262059/1/kindle-fire-is-make-or-break-for-amazon-shares.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN) or you think they are closer to break even, they are not making money on the devices. They are selling them to make money selling content and to keep you happy in the Amazon family, selling all kinds of Amazon stuff. It doesn't really benefit them to offer services that directly compete with theirs. But in books, particularly, they do have a very large market share and so provoking regulatory ire is not in their interest. For that reason, I believe they might even approve a Nook app, although I again doubt B&N would ever submit one. It would be a two-way street in that regard and really B&N doesn't want the Kindle app on the Nook Color.

Mark Rogowsky

While you can't install Google Books or the B&N Nook app from the Amazon Appstore, if you can find the APK files, they're easy to "sideload" onto the device. http://mashable.com/2011/11/14/kindle-fire-runs-nook-app/

Tim Watson

You can access purchased ebooks from Google via a browser. I assume Silk should be able to render http://books.google.com. I guess B&N could write an in browser reader as well. Amazon created an in browser reader optimized for the iPad.

Steve Hoffman

See, this is a bummer, as I'd really like a Kindle Fire, but have hundreds of dollars invested in my Nook Library. I'm sure if I got a Kindle, I'd purchase books from Amazon, but I'm not going to throw away the hundreds of dollars already invested in my library. Guess I'll take my money back to B&N. :(

Melissa Latchford

If you can obtain PDF or equivalent formats these are easily converted into amzn format (mobi) via numerous software apps out there. Last I recall there were several python tools.

Christopher Rubin

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