Today we announced Amazon GameOn, a cross-platform, competitive gaming service for developers. GameOn is a set of flexible APIs that allow you to easily build cross-platform competitions into your games, allowing your players to compete for real-world prizes fulfilled by Amazon.

We are in the process of revamping the app submission experience on our developer portal. Part one of this revamp is focused on improving the multimedia assets upload experience and how you add app descriptions.

Today Amazon announced the all-new Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, the most powerful streaming media stick available. The next-generation Fire TV Stick is 30 percent faster than the original best-selling version, offers access to more than 300,000 movies and TV episodes, and includes the Alexa Voice Remote—for only $39.99. Now sporting a quad-core processor, it has the horsepower to let your high-performance apps and games shine.

We’re also optimizing the on-device experience for customers, making it easier for them to discover new content. The all-new Fire TV Stick offers new and upgraded features including, personalized recommendations, notifications and Alexa powered voice search that allows customers to launch apps and games by name using their voice. Engage new customers and expand your reach to the living room with Fire TV Stick. Submit your app now to make sure it’s available when the new Fire TV Stick ships on October, 20^th.

Amazon Dash Replenishment, the service that enables connected devices to automatically reorder physical products from Amazon, has just launched for developers, and device integrators in the UK and Germany.

Now, developers in the UK and Germany can take advantage of Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de’s authentication and payment systems, customer service, and fulfillment network to ensure that customers never have that “ran out of it” moment.

To get started, login to the Dash Replenishment Service (DRS) device wizard on the developer portal and create a US device.

Once the device is created you will see a link in the wizard to add UK/DE marketplaces in the device summary. Complete and submit the form. Amazon will provision your device and create a test ASIN list that is supported in each marketplace.

To learn more about Amazon Dash Replenishment click here.

Amazon Dash Replenishment combines the power of Amazon’s retail platform with connected devices, creating an innovative and simple set of API’s that can be used to build seamless reordering experiences for your customers. These API’s allow you to leverage Amazon's authentication and payment systems, customer service, and fulfillment network—ensuring your customers never face the “ran out of it” moment while giving them access to Amazon's low prices, great selection, and reliable delivery.

Today we are happy to announce our new Amazon Dash Replenishment device wizard—an easy-to-use quick-start wizard for developers to help you configure your device or service and enable it to place orders from Amazon. 

In order to provide a great experience to users, the first thing you have to think about is the user interface (UI) of your app. Designing the UI and UX (user experience) of an app could become a very challenging and time-consuming task, but there are some simple steps that you can follow to make your app look great on tablets.

Mario Viviani, Amazon Technology Evangelist, will be hosting a live webinar as he shares with how to implement solid UI design for Android tablets. He should know! Mario is a former Google Development Expert (GDE) who has done design work for the world’s most popular Android tablets. In this presentation, Mario will explain the relationship between different layouts and fragments; how screen density, screen resolution, display size, and density pixels all work together; and how to also apply that knowledge to Amazon Fire tablets. After this presentation, you’ll not only have a better understanding of how to design UI for tablets, but you’ll understand more about optimizing your Android design for any form-factor!

Join us on July 28^th to learn how to optimize your Android app UI and understand Tablet UI basics. At the end of this webinar you will learn:

• Best strategies to properly create and size layouts & graphical resources of your app.
• How to better understand screen resolution and density for Android devices.
• How to explicitly declare support for Fire tablets in your Android app manifest.

Reserve Your Spot Today

Want to learn more? Register today to learn how to scale game visuals across different resolutions

Register for 7:00am PDT (3:00pm BST) on Thursday, July 28, 2016

Register for 1:00pm PDT (9:00pm BST) on Thursday, July 28, 2016

Last week Amazon announced unlocked Android phones with exclusive pricing for Prime members, and today those phones will start arriving on customer doorsteps.  The all-new BLU R1 HD is only $49.99 ( $50.00 off its retail price of $99.99 ) and the new fourth-generation Motorola Moto G is $149.99 ( $50.00 off its retail price of $199.99 ). Each phone is offered unlocked, with no commitment to a contract, giving Prime members the flexibility to switch between wireless carriers and service options to best fit their needs. The BLU R1 HD and Moto G feature Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Google Mobile Services, including Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube , and Google Play. A single sign-on experience provides Prime members easy access to their Prime benefits through the most popular Amazon apps, including tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video, over one million songs and playlists with Prime Music, unlimited photo storage and backup with Prime Photos, one free pre-released book a month with Kindle First, FREE two-day shipping on millions of items, and more. Customers also get access to thousands of apps, games and in-app items that are 100% free with Amazon Underground, and can shop a personalized selection of Amazon's daily deals right from a new home screen widget. Currently, the devices are only available to customers in the United States. 

Reach Millions of Customers on More Devices

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.

In addition to Fire tablets, Fire TV and other Android devices, the BLU R1 HD and Moto G will help increase the reach of Amazon developers by bringing the Amazon Appstore and the Underground Program to more Prime customers.  With millions of Prime customers in the United States, having Amazon Underground come pre-loaded on the BLU R1 HD and the new Moto G presents a great opportunity for you to get your apps and games in front of a brand new audience and make more money. 

Join us on Wednesday, July 20th at the Marriott Marquis (Yerba Buena Ballroom - Salon 7), in San Francisco for a packed day of learnings on all things monetization and retention. Come and hear from our Developer Evangelists and industry leaders who will share best practices and actionable tips on how you can optimize and monetize your games and turn your IP into a brand.  The developer day is complimentary and doesn't require Casual Connect event badge access.

The theme for the day is 360° Monetization and we will be talking about all the ways you can monetize inside your game and outside. 

We’ll start the day by sharing easy steps that you can take to optimize your app store listing to make sure your game gets discovered and downloaded. You’ll hear from our Developer Evangelists on common trends within the Top 50 apps, so you can learn what you should be doing to get to the top of the charts. Industry leaders and top game developers will join us to discuss retention and monetization best practices. You’ll also hear from leaders at Twitch on how you can turn your players into fans and build community around your game.  A light breakfast and lunch will be provided along with the opportunity to win some awesome prizes.

Register here for this exciting event! Or to learn more about Casual Connect visit their event page here. We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco!

Building games as an indie or AAA studio is serious business and unless you treat it as such you’ll have trouble finding success. We’ve entered a golden age of creativity and experimentation. Today, anyone with an idea can build a game and publish it to a global audience. How does the gifted amateur become a pro game developer, and from there, a games industry success story? Hint: it requires more than just programming or artistic talent. I'll look at the single most-important skill you can develop, and show by example what happens if you neglect it. I'll also offer practical insights on choosing a game genre, development environment, and target hardware as well as how to monetize your game. When thinking about the success of your game, you need to have a strategy that encompasses all three stages of a game’s lifespan: Pre-production, active development stage as well as the post launch stage. My talks usually focus on monetization, marketing and best practices for creating apps and games on mobile platforms.

Join me as I discuss how to approach game development as a business—even if business isn’t your "thing". I am no stranger to starting a business, with three friends, I bootstrapped my first indie game studio to create casual games in the late 90s, then started another to deliver episodic educational games to kids online. That company was eventually acquired and I moved onto develop games for the nascent mobile market.

Join me on June 30^th to learn how to go From a One-Person Shop to Indie Dev to AAA. At the end of this webinar you will learn:

• How to develop a game and turn it into a viable business.
• How to choose a game genre and development environment.
• How to choose the right target hardware for your game as well as how to monetize your game

Reserve Your Spot Today

Want to learn more? Register today to learn how to scale game visuals across different resolutions

Register for 7:00am PDT (2:00pm GMT) on Thursday, June 30, 2016

Register for 1:00pm PDT (8:00pm GMT) on Thursday, June 30, 2016

The Amazon Mobile Ad Network (AMAN) is offering a limited time opportunity to double your worldwide August iOS ad earnings. Simply send the first ad request from qualifying new iOS apps* starting June 13^th, 2016. Earnings on qualifying banner and interstitial impressions* served on iOS devices in all supported markets (US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan) will be doubled up to $10,000 per developer. If your qualifying iOS apps generate $10,000 in global ad earnings in August, AMAN will match your earning with an additional $10,000 in promotional earnings so you receive $20,000.

Why Use the Amazon Mobile Ad Network (AMAN)?

AMAN serves unique high-quality ads from Amazon and brand advertisers on iOS, Android, and Fire OS phones and tablets. See how these developers increased their ad earnings with AMAN. 

Get Started with the iOS Offer

1. Create a free account and obtain an Application Key
2. Integrate the Amazon Mobile Ad Network iOS SDK into your app.
3. Send the first ad request on or after June 13, 2016.
4. See your iOS earnings doubled on the Mobile Ads Performance Reports!

* Existing apps already sending ad requests do not qualify. Apps that integrate the Amazon Mobile Ad Network SDK for the first time are eligible for the offer. Developers working with an Amazon Mobile Ad Network Account Manager do not qualify.

Click here to learn more. Share this post using hashtag #AMAN.

As a next step towards providing a transparent app validation process, the Amazon Appstore team launched a new feature that shares the details of device testing steps in a visual manner on Amazon developer portal. The recorded testing session makes it easier for you to understand the test scenarios and issues that may have prevented your app from being approved and published. Using this feature, you can play the recorded testing session of your apps, which clearly annotates testing actions and highlights any issues that were encountered by the Amazon testing team. In addition to recorded testing session, we’re also providing artefacts such as test events, logcat, and CPU utilization. These artefacts make it easier for you to understand and trace any issues Appstore testing team uncover, creating a more seamless publishing experience.

Previously, the ‘review status’ tab on developer portal provided only a set of screenshots with issue descriptions and logs. There was no way for developers to see how their apps were tested, what was tested, and what actions were performed on various screens, such as, tap, double tap, fling, press menu, etc. Now developers can conveniently hover on each actions and the annotation will lead them through a detailed issue description and logs.

Where and How Can You See This Feature?

Login to the Developer Portal and select the app that you submitted to the Amazon Appstore. You will find the testing report of this app under “Review Status” tab. The top message tells you whether you app went live or was it blocked due to some policy compliance or functionality failure. If your app passed successfully without any issue, then you won’t see any testing details. If the app didn’t pass, you will see the detailed issue description and test recording which helps you in tracing the issue. The affected section will be highlighted in Red. Sections highlighted as Yellow describe comments from the Amazon testing team that have been flagged for your review. To understand why your app failed testing, click on the “Test Recording” tab, which contains all the screens and annotated actions performed. To quickly reach the affected screen, go to the thumbnail marked with a red flag.  The right panel will show the screenshot and the left panel describes the related test events. You can also refer to logcat or download it for further analysis. These artefacts will help you reproducing the specific issue, resolve it and resubmit your app or game to the Amazon Appstore.

We expect to make ongoing improvements to the publishing experience on Appstore and encourage you to send us your feedback in the forum here.           

We are happy to announce our transition to a new developer forum platform! We hope that this new platform will not only be a more accessible discussion experience for you, but will also allow us to provide better assistance to our developer community.

The forums can be found at forums.developer.amazon.com. You can choose from a variety of spaces including Alexa, General Android, Amazon Underground, Merch by Amazon, and Chinese and Japanese language support. In each space we have built a knowledge base of frequently asked questions and have a team of global moderators available to help you out. We invite you to ask questions, contribute answers, follow threads, and join our growing developer community online for support, sharing, and feedback.

For our veteran forum users - Don’t worry! Everything related to your past accounts has been automatically migrated to the new forum such as your username and post history. New users will be able to make new accounts and get involved in the discussion right away.

Although aesthetically different to our previous forum platform, you can still post questions and add comments or answers. Our new platform also provides the following additional benefits:

Have you been thinking about creating a t-shirt with the Merch by Amazon program? In case you hadn’t heard, Merch by Amazon is Amazon’s new print-on-demand t-shirt service where you get to design a t-shirt and collect royalties from the sales on your very own Amazon.com page. (learn more here).

I know several developers who, after waiting for months to get their Merch by Amazon account, still haven’t made a shirt yet. Hey. There’s no shame in this; it took me a while too. The thing is, we’re developers, not t-shirt designers. It’s okay if we need a bit of guidance to get started. So let me share what I’ve learned from the pretty-smart marketing folks on the Merch team!

So What T-Shirt Should You Make?

If you have been thinking about it, but are stuck on what shirt or shirts to make, think about making shirts that can increase player engagement or satisfy your fans desire to recognize important achievements.

With Advertise Your App, you can promote your app to millions of users on Fire Tablet Wakescreens and mobile placements on the Amazon Mobile Ad Network. Getting started is easy; you can create an Advertise Your App campaign in less than 90 seconds, and launch a campaign with as little as $100. And the best part? You only pay when a user clicks on your ads.

Advertise Your App offers you the ability to drive app installs across banners, interstitials and on Fire Tablet Wakescreens. We are excited to announce that you can now bid by ad format. Set the same or separate cost-per-click bids by ad format. Advertise Your App offers two ad formats: Full screens (interstitials and Fire Tablet Wakescreens) and banners.

Here’s how it works: Login to the Developer Portal. While setting up a new Advertise Your App campaign, you can choose to let us auto generate your ads for you or you can upload your own custom banner and interstitial ad creative. Once you have launched your campaign, visit the campaign reporting dashboard to view conversions associated with your Advertise Your App campaign.

Did you know that some developers make more money in Amazon Underground than on any other Android platform? Gerard Piqué’s Final Kick saw over 1500% more revenue in Amazon Underground and Goat Simulator made more money on Amazon Underground in December than on any other Android Platform?

In most app store models, developers are paid a revenue share based on the initial purchase of the app or the in-app purchases. With Amazon Underground’s monetization approach, Amazon pays you for every minute a customer uses your Amazon Underground app, and customers pay nothing meaning that Amazon pays developers based on the amount of time your app is used. With Amazon Underground, you can turn 100% of your Android users into revenue generating customers. You get paid starting from the very first minute your Amazon Underground app is used, and you will continue to be paid for every minute of use by every customer in exchange for you waiving your normal download or in-app fees.  With Amazon Underground, you can focus less on monetizing and more on creating great user experiences.

Join us on April 29^th to learn how to Generate Revenue from 100% of Your Android Users with Amazon Underground. At the end of this webinar you will know:

• What is Amazon Underground?
• Who is eligible?
• How to submit your app to Amazon Underground
• How developers are doing in Amazon Underground

Reserve Your Spot Today

Register today and learn how you can monetize 100% of your Android users with Amazon Underground. I will tell you everything you need to know about Amazon Underground, how to get started, and how developers are increasing their revenue and downloads with Amazon Underground.

Register for 7:00am PDT (2:00pm GMT) on Friday, April 29, 2016

Register for 1:00pm PDT (8:00pm GMT) on Friday, April 29, 2016

It's Easy to Get Started

If you want to submit your own app or game for Amazon Underground, simply follow these three easy steps:

1. Prepare Your App – Learn how to get your app ready.
2. Register for Free – Sign up for your Amazon developer account.
3. Submit Your App – Opt in to Amazon Underground during the submission process.

- Peter