Appstore Blogs
Showing posts by David Isbitski
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending October 24th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Tuesday, October 21st |
UK Devs: Come Learn about the Amazon Appstore Oct 29-31 We announced a free Amazon Appstore Developer Day at the Amazon UK offices next week. Learn essential tips, tricks and tools to distribute your app to Amazon customers directly from the Amazon experts. |
| Wednesday, October 22nd |
GameCircle Now Available in the Corona SDK We announced official Corona Labs SDK support for Amazon GameCircle. |
| Thursday, October 23rd |
Join the Amazon Appstore at PhoneGap Day in San Francisco We announced the Amazon Appstore will be at PhoneGap Day Friday October 24th covering how to publish your PhoneGap apps to the Amazon Appstore. |
| Friday October 24th |
Three Important Stats About Holiday Device Sales In just over month, the holiday season officially kicks off. To help you get focused, we’ve compiled these important statistics you should see before the holidays. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending October 17th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Friday, October 17th |
re:Invent Track Preview: The Dynamic Perspective API Under the Hood The Appstore team is gearing up for AWS re:Invent, which is happening at the Venetian in Las Vegas from Nov 11-14. We posted a short preview of @peterdotgames session that details the inside story on the Dynamic Perspective API. |
| Friday, October 17th |
How to Increase Downloads and Make More Money One question developers commonly ask is: how can I increase downloads and reach new customers? We posted a short video that shared 4 tips to help developers increase downloads and make more money. |
| Tuesday, October 14th |
Join the Amazon Appstore Team at the AWS Loft in San Francisco We announced Amazon Appstore days at the AWS Pop-up Loft. Meet with developer evangelists, learn about the Appstore in technical sessions, participate in the Appstore Port-a-Thon, and gain hands-on experience through our self-paced hands-on monetization services lab. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending October 3rd on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Wednesday, October 1st |
How to Migrate Your Blackberry App to the Amazon Appstore We posted a tutorial on how to quickly migrate your existing Android Runtime app in BlackBerry world to the Amazon Appstore. The Amazon Appstore is now preloaded on BlackBerry 10.3 devices exposing your apps to new potential customers. |
| Thursday, October 2nd
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AWS Mobile Services Helps Mobile Developers Build Great Experiences across Devices and Platforms We shared an overview of the AWS Mobile SDK and how to get started. The AWS Mobile SDK helps bring the power of the cloud to your apps while enabling you to build high quality mobile apps quickly and easily across multiple platforms including iOS, Android and Fire OS. |
| Friday, October 3rd |
Re:Invent Track Profile: What the Top 50 Games Do with In-App Purchasing That the Rest of Us Don’t We covered some of the new content for mobile developers at this year’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, November 11th-14th. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Today’s mobile developer must engage customers with app experiences that run across an array of devices and platforms yet remain responsive and powerful. The AWS Mobile SDK can help bring the power of the cloud to your apps while enabling you to build high quality mobile apps quickly and easily across multiple platforms including iOS, Android and Fire OS.
The AWS Mobile SDK provides access to AWS Mobile services, mobile-optimized connectors to popular AWS data and storage services, and easy access to a broad array of other AWS services. Libraries, code samples, and documentation for iOS, Android, and Fire OS are all included so you can start building right away!
The second version of the SDK is now generally available after wrapping up a thorough Developer Preview. A lot of developer feedback was received during this preview and has been incorporated into this new update. Jeff Barr via the Amazon Web Services Blog explains…
Version 2 of the AWS Mobile SDK has been available in Developer Preview since early July (See my blog post, New AWS Mobile Services to learn more). During the Developer Preview, many developers used the AWS Mobile SDK in their apps and provided us with a lot of really good feedback.
Today we are wrapping up the Developer Preview and making the AWS Mobile SDK Generally Available. You can download it here and get started with the AWS Mobile Services.
We responded to the feedback that we received during the developer preview and made a number of improvements to the SDK. You can find the details in the release notes section ( iOS, Android). Here are some of the more significant improvements:
- The method count in the AWS Mobile SDK for Android has been reduced by 40% to 13K. This will reduce the size of the final APK and keeps you clear of Android's limit on the number of methods.
- The SDK supports offline sync using Amazon Cognito. The SDK queues requests made when the device is offline. The requests (pending sync operations) are executed when internet connectivity is available. Details can be found here.
- The AWS Mobile SDK for iOS now includes support for pre-signed Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) URLs. You can use these URLS to perform background transfers using the NSURLSession class.
To get started today with AWS Mobile Services check out the following resources:
- AWS Mobile Services
- AWS Mobile SDK
- AWS Mobile Blog
- AWS Mobile SDK Getting Started Guide for iOS
- AWS Mobile SDK Getting Started Guide for Android
- AWS on GitHub
- Community Forums
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending September 26th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Monday, September 22nd |
Video: Top 10 Tips for Getting Your Game Running on Fire TV We posted a quick video offering tips for quickly optimizing your apps and games for the 10 foot Fire TV experience. |
| Tuesday, September 23rd
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Fire Tablet First to Feature Dolby Atmos Enhanced Audio We announced Dolby Atmos support in the next generation of Fire tablets and how you can quickly integrate support in your own games. |
| Wednesday, September 24th |
Amazon Appstore Now Preloaded on Blackberry 10.3 We announced the Amazon Appstore is now preloaded on BlackBerry 10.3 devices starting with BlackBerry Passport. Hundreds of thousands of apps and games will now be available to Blackberry customers through the same Amazon Appstore. |
| Friday, September 26th |
Why the Fire HD 6 Is the Perfect Game Developer’s Companion Jesse Freeman posted his thoughts on using the new Fire HD 6 tablet as an affordable and incredibly powerful mini tablet for indie game development. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending September 19th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Wednesday, September 17th |
Announcing Fire OS 4 “Sangria” & the Next Generation of Amazon Fire Tablets We introduced Fire OS 4 “Sangria,” the next generation of software and services that powers Amazon’s Fire devices, including three all-new Fire tablets introduced today. |
| Thursday, September 18th
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Playtika Generates 70% Higher ARPU on the Amazon Appstore We sat down with Playtika and discussed their success in the Amazon Appstore. Playtika Sees 150% Higher Conversion Rates from Players to Payers on the Amazon Appstore Compared to iOS and 170% compared to Google Play. |
| Friday, September 19th |
Check Your App’s Fire Tablet Compatibility with App Testing Service App Testing Service (ATS) has been updated to work seamlessly with Fire OS 4. In as little as 90 seconds, you can receive a detailed report of potential issues that could affect compatibility with the Amazon Appstore. ATS can also run your app on actual Fire HD 6 and Fire HD 7 devices, providing a comprehensive compatibility report (including screenshots) in as little as 15 minutes. New Amazon App for Android Helps Developers Reach New Customers We announced updates to the Amazon App for Android, the primary Amazon shopping app enjoyed by millions of customers. The new Amazon App for Android phones now enables customers to discover and purchase all of Amazon’s digital catalog including Amazon Appstore apps and games from one app. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Fire TV can help you increase your customer base by putting your app in the living room, in front of people who enjoy entertainment and may not have seen your apps before. This quick video details 10 tips to help you quickly optimize your app or game for the 10-foot experience, and covers how to get 500K Amazon Coins if your app qualifies for Appstore Developer Select.
Fire TV is currently available in the US and retails for $99. Fire TV will ship on September 25, 2014 in Germany (€99) and October 23, 2014 in the UK (£79).
For more information about getting started with Amazon Fire TV, check out our online documentation:
Purchase an Amazon Fire TV in the US, UK or Germany
Amazon Fire TV SDK Frequently Asked Questions
Design and User Experience Guidelines
Android Developer Multiple Screen Guidance
Supporting Different Screen Sizes
Supporting Different Densities
- Dave (@TheDaveDev)
On September 9th, Amazon announced the updated Amazon App for Android – the primary Amazon shopping app enjoyed by millions of customers. The new Amazon App for Android phones provides an award-winning mobile shopping experience on hundreds of millions of physical goods and now enables customers to discover and purchase all of Amazon’s digital catalog - including Amazon Appstore apps and games – from one app. It’s never been easier for Amazon Appstore developers to reach new customers.
Reach Millions Of Customers on More Devices
Millions of customers already enjoy the benefits of Amazon Prime membership. The new Amazon App for Android combines the fast and easy mobile shopping experience customers have come to know and love with access to unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes from Prime Instant Video. Now, your apps and games are directly integrated into that experience, and you have a new channel to reach customers. Current Amazon Appstore developers don’t have to do anything; your app is already included in the new Amazon App for Android.
Want your App included in the Amazon App for Android catalog? Click here to register as an Appstore developer.
Make More Money with the Amazon Appstore
The Amazon Appstore has never been available on a broader range of devices and platforms. It’s no wonder 65% of the surveyed developers also say that the Total Revenue achieved on the Kindle Fire is similar to, or even better than, what they experience with other major platforms.
The Amazon Appstore is integrated into Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire phone devices. Earlier this month, we announced that Fire TV and Fire phone are now available in the UK and Germany. Back in August, we announced the expansion of the Amazon Appstore to 41 new countries, including Egypt, Indonesia, Singapore and Turkey. So publishing your Android app on Amazon means you reach customers from around the world.
The Amazon Appstore is not just available on Amazon devices. This announcement further expands the distribution of Appstore apps and games on Android devices. And coming this fall, the Amazon Appstore will be preloaded on BlackBerry 10 devices globally, giving you access to more customers with Amazon.
How Do Developers Make Their App Available?
Most Amazon Appstore developers don’t have to do anything; as long as you clicked the box for “compatibility with non-Amazon devices” on the Developer Portal, your app is generally already included in the new Amazon App for Android. Developers who have a check within their app to see if their app was installed on the device by the Amazon Appstore will need to modify their code to include a less specific check to see if their app was installed by Amazon. Want your app included in the Amazon App for Android catalog? Click here to register as an Appstore developer – it’s free.
Now Is the Time to Submit Your App
Submit your app today to get your app or game included in the new Amazon App for Android. Most apps just work with no additional development required.
Click here to register for a free developer account. Click here to test your app and get feedback within 90 seconds.
- Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending September 12th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Monday, September 8th |
Fire, Amazon’s First Smartphone, Now Available in the UK and Germany We announced the availability of Fire phone, Amazon’s first smartphone, in the UK and Germany. Fire phone is currently available in the US and will ship on September 30, 2014 in Germany and the UK. |
| Tuesday, September 9th
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6 Reasons Why Mobile Devs Should Check out AWS re:Invent We listed six reasons for mobile developers to check out AWS re:Invent, happening November 11-14, 2014 at The Venetian in Las Vegas, Nevada. |
| Wednesday, September 10th |
Handygames: Creating Unique Gaming Experiences with Fire Phone and Fire TV We chatted with HandyGames about customer reactions to the new experiences they’ve built using Fire phone and Fire TV. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending September 5th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Tuesday, September 2nd |
Make the Amazon Appstore Your Game’s Home If you have been thinking about expanding your game’s user base, there has never been a better time to publish on the Amazon Appstore. With a wide range of form factors covering tablet, phone, TV and dedicated game services, we want our platform to be the next stop for your title. |
| Wednesday, September 3rd
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Amazon Fire TV Now Available in the UK and Germany: Bring Your Apps and Games into the Living Room We announced availability of Amazon Fire TV in the UK and Germany. Amazon Fire TV has been the best-selling streaming box on Amazon in the US since it launched in April, and will ship on September 25, 2014 in Germany (€99) and October 23, 2014 in the UK (£79). German Publisher Tivola Sees 33% More ARPU on Amazon Compared to Other Android Platforms We shared Tivola’s experience reaching new customers with the Amazon Appstore. Tivola is a kids and family games publisher based in Hamburg, Germany who have seen ARPU (Average Revenue per User) as high as 33% more when selling through the Amazon Appstore. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending August 29th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Monday, August 25th |
Why Do Indie Developers Love the Amazon Appstore? We posted a new video interview where Indie Developers share their experiences growing reach and revenue on the Amazon Appstore. |
| Friday, August 29th
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Amazon Coins Now Available in Japan and Australia We announced expansion of the Amazon Coins program to both Japan and Australia! Customers in those countries can now use Amazon Coins on apps, games, in-app purchasing, Android phones and tablets and on amazon.co.jp and amazom.com.au. For a limited time, every Kindle Fire owner in Japan and Australia will also find 500 Yen/$5.00 AUD worth of free coins deposited into their Amazon Account. |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending August 22nd on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Monday, August 18th |
Register Today: Seattle Indie Gaming Event We announced a GameJam event at Amazon HQ in Seattle. The event will last all day Saturday through Sunday and give you an opportunity to help you build your game from scratch. |
| Wednesday, August 20th
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GameCircle Gets Better: Updated Adobe Native Extension for Gaming Now Available We announced Native Extension (ANE) support for GameCircle has been updated with new features to support the latest version of GameCircle. |
| Friday, August 22nd |
Come Join Us at Xamarin Evolve, October 6-10th in Atlanta, Georgia We announced Amazon sessions at the Xamarin Evolve conference this fall. If you are a C# developer looking to publish your apps and games to Amazon devices this session is for you! |
Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Are you a C# developer looking to publish your apps and games across multiple mobile platforms? Did you know that Xamarin fully supports Amazon’s growing ecosystem of devices including Kindle Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire phone. With over 240,000+ apps available Amazon Appstore selection has nearly tripled over the past year, and since Fire phone launched, the rate of app submissions to the Amazon Appstore has more than doubled.
Now is the time! Using the same C# language you love and the power of Xamarin you can reach hundreds of millions of potential new Amazon customers. Come join us at Xamarin Evolve this October and see firsthand the latest AWS mobile services and ecosystem of devices from Amazon. Learn about native Amazon Fire Phone, Fire TV, and Kindle Fire Apps with Xamarin, how to quickly use Xamarin to run your apps and games on Amazon devices and tips on noticed in the Amazon Appstore.
Register now to get your ticket to mobile expertise with Amazon Web Services and the Amazon Fire line of devices at Xamarin Evolve 2014. See you October 6th in Atlanta!
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending August 15th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Wednesday, August 13th |
Launch Better Apps: Announcing Live App Testing
We announced Live App Testing giving you the ability to quickly distribute your apps in the Amazon Appstore to a pre-defined set of testers before you go live.
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| Thursday, August 14th
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HTML5 Packaged Apps Services Makes It Even Easier to Submit Apps
We announced new support for web apps submission to the Amazon Appstore giving you the option to submit self-contained, packaged web apps. You can now submit your web app as a standard zipfile in addition to the existing hosted web app solution or have web apps in the Amazon Appstore that use both.
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Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)
Here is a quick recap of new posts for the week ending August 8th on the Amazon Apps & Services Blog.
| Monday, August 4th |
Launch Your Android Game into the Living Room with Fire TV
We covered the recent growth of Fire TV’s app catalog, some of the most recognizable game titles that have launched for it, and the huge potential it offers to get your apps noticed.
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Don’t forget you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our YouTube channel.
-Dave (@TheDaveDev)