We are excited to announce that Amazon Fire TV will now support the use of USB-connected external storage such as flash drives. This will enable customers to expand the built-in storage on the device so that they can install even more apps and games! For developers, this now allows you to specify if your app or game should be installed to the external drive or internally which was originally the default option. This is also a great opportunity for game developers who may have had concerns that their game would be too big for the Fire TV’s built-in 8 gigs of storage.

How to Modify your Android Manifest

Making the switch from storing your App or game to external storage is a simple process that will require a small change to the manifest file. To enable your app to be installed on USB storage, modify your Android manifest (AndroidManifest.xml) to include the installLocation attribute of the <manifest> element:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

android:installLocation="preferExternal" ... >

...

</manifest>

The value of installLocation must be one of the following three values:

 If you are using a 3^rd party framework or IDE, check with their documentation on how to enable this. In Unity for example, you can change this in the publishing settings when you have Android selected as the target platform.

While we strongly suggest enabling this behavior for most games, be aware that Apps, which play DRM-protected media, should use the ‘internalOnly’ flag, to maintain stability if USB storage becomes unavailable while your App is running. Also, you’ll need to decide if you are going to give you App or game write access to internal or external storage.

A New Interface for External USB Storage

The Fire TV platform will provide the user interface to manage USB storage, to fail gracefully if that storage is disconnected or becomes unavailable, and to enable the user to manage the space on both device and USB storage. Please note that external USB storage is not available for Fire TV Stick.

Ready to Publish Your App or Game to Fire TV?

Check out the following links below to learn more:

• 10 Tips for Remote & Controller
• Tips for Getting Your Android Apps Looking Good on Fire TV
• Introducing the Web App Starter Kit for Fire TV

- Jesse Freeman (@jessefreeman)