Amazon remembers it has an Android app store, kills it

As a result of its loss in that case, Google may be forced to open Android up to third-party app stores by sharing the Google Play app catalog and distributing other stores. That will give a boost to platforms like Epic Games and Microsoft. Amazon could have benefitted as well, at least in theory. The company’s decision to end phone support for the Appstore now illustrates how few people used it. Perhaps things would have been different if Microsoft hadn’t abandoned the Windows Subsystem for Android in 2024, which used the Amazon Appstore for app distribution.

The Fire conundrum

There’s another wrinkle for Amazon, which may explain why it has allowed the store to languish so long in this state. While Amazon has given up on competing with Google directly, it can’t completely abandon Android apps. The company doesn’t make phones (aside from that extremely weird one in 2014), but it does offer a range of Fire tablets and Fire TV streaming boxes that run Android. It would prefer you didn’t think of them like that, though.

Amazon’s Fire devices run a custom version of Android called Fire OS, but Amazon hates to admit that it’s Android under the hood; you won’t see the word “Android” on any of these product pages. Amazon says the Appstore will continue to exist on Fire devices—it really has no choice, as these devices lack Google services. So, your ultra-budget tablet or Fire TV Stick will still have access to streaming apps and simple games, but future Fire hardware could skip Android altogether.

The existence of Android-based Fire hardware may explain why Amazon’s language around the shutdown is so vague. Amazon says its apps “will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices” after the shutdown date. Here, “Android devices” means your phone—it doesn’t consider Fire tablets and Fire TV to be Android devices, even though they are. If Amazon didn’t need to keep the store alive for Fire devices, there would be less uncertainty there.

So app access won’t be upended for Fire users, who undoubtedly account for the overwhelming bulk of Appstore usage. Thus, Amazon knows there won’t be a raft of unhappy customers complaining about losing their apps. Developers who spent time releasing phone-optimized content on the Amazon store might be irked, though. All that work will be for naught once the phone client shuts down. However, there won’t be much in the way of lost revenue with so few people using Amazon’s store.