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The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

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Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#161

Post by dowager_dan99 »

develoopest wrote: post #127
bogwog wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really so hard? I cancelled my Prime subscription years ago and haven't missed it. Walmart, Target, Costco, BestBuy, HomeDepot, etc haven't gone anywhere. Smaller specialty retailers usually sell on their own website with shipping too. Plus, one genuine advantage the other retailers have over Amazon is that you can (usually) trust you're getting something of reasonable quality, whereas Amazon feels like an AI…

> any service that pays Amazon If we go literal with this, it gets far more complicated counting Amazon web services

It's not reasonable or effective to delve into the private supply chain, IMO. Don't let perfect be the enemy of better.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#162

Post by dowager_dan99 »

fuomag9 wrote: post #75
reaperducer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just stop giving Amazon money—at this point you can only blame yourself. Done. Mostly. I dropped Prime last year, and have been surprised by the results. 1. I don't buy a bunch of pointless plastic crap that I don't need anymore. It was the thrill/affirmation/addiction of near-instant gratification delivery that made me buy stuff on impulse. 2. I've saved a bunch of money because of #1. 3. Unless it's same-day delive…

If I need to to buy electronics here in Italy I either go on aliexpress (and goodbye warranty) or Amazon. There’s no Best Buy or Newegg here to go to

feels like you've identified a market for a Italian Newegg....

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#163

Post by vel0city »

reaperducer wrote: post #154
vel0city wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you've pretty much dropped Amazon the ecommerce store/platform. But what about any online services you consume? So many things online these days have some amount of AWS hosting involved.

I can only control my actions. I cannot control what other people do.

I fully agree. Just pointing out other things to think about when trying to avoid Amazon. Good luck on your journey.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#164

Post by dangrossman »

malfist wrote: post #23
SapporoChris wrote: post #5

"What happens to my apps after the discontinuation of the Amazon Appstore on Android?" "Starting August 20, 2025, any apps downloaded from the Amazon Appstore will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices. Amazon Appstore will continue to be available elsewhere, including on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices. " --------- So for people that purchased apps through Amazon Appstore, what are their options for apps t…

There needs to be some recourse here. Amazon isn't going bankrupt and closing business. They need to honor their customer commitments. After all, earn trust and customer obsession are two of their leadership principles

I'm surprised they're not just refunding all the purchases. I thought Amazon was still that kind of place. When they discontinued Amazon Cloud Cam in 2022, they sent out a replacement Blink camera for every Cloud Cam I had purchased, plus a year of free Blink service. This was 5 years after I had purchased the cameras, and they made no commitment to them working forever.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#165

Post by malfist »

michaelt wrote: post #130
dylan604 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wiping out customers' purchases when you've got $100 billion in the bank, though? Kinda a dick move. What you call a dick move might actually have made sense financially for a business. If MS Music was losing money with no hopes of ever turning a profit, why should they continue to operate a charity music service subsidized by all of the other MS businesses that are making money? Same thing for Amazon. If it is som…

> What you call a dick move might actually have made sense financially for a business. Of course it makes financial sense for the business. Taking the customer's money and not delivering the promised product is really profitable, if you can get away with it. Still a dick move though.

Theft is often a smart business move

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#166

Post by snotrockets »

scripturial wrote: post #120
dylan604 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume they would have a record of the user in their database. How else would they earn money from the data harvesting their app is a cover for? For the small number of apps that aren't solely data harvesting, surely they still have records of their users in a database as well? This question almost reads as if you're assuming the only record of an app would be through the store and not by the app developers thems…

In google play the purchaser information is mostly privatized and hidden from the developer. I assume Amazon is the same. The only way a developer would know a person is an existing user is if they have a user sign up process inside the app itself.

Using android.content.SharedPreferences, set one singaling the user purchased a license from the Amazon copy of the app, read it from the Google Play app.

It is doable, the main issues is: 1. Getting users to redownload the app from the Play store 2. Maintaining this registration transfer mechanism

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#167

Post by snotrockets »

rs186 wrote: post #15

Did Amazon start a new round of cost cutting, layoffs or something? Yesterday they discontinued Chime. As if Amazon is doubling down on cutting "unnecessary" services

AWS (which isn't Amazon, really, even if they share resources), used to bake the cost of keeping the lights on practically forever, or at least until the last user churns. The product may not see improvements if it didn't get traction, but you could bank on being able to use it forever.

When they did decide to kill something, like non-VPC EC2, you'd get the notice a literal decade ahead. For this specific example, sunset started end of '13, with the last instance shut off mid '23.

This all started to change a couple of years ago, when they became much more aggressive with doing the Googles and just killing a thing with a few months of a warning. Pity.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#168

Post by reaperducer »

CivBase wrote: post #141
reaperducer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow this logic. Amazon did something bad on their app store so now walled gardens are good? No, the logic is that several large companies (Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) have done bad things on their app store, so no stores can be trusted. But for me, I trust a big name store more than I trust an small unknown store.

I'm not sure what "small unknown" stores you might be referring to. Surely Amazon qualifies as a "big name" store same as Apple or Google, right? Clearly this event shows a big name is not an indication of consumer protection.

Surely Amazon qualifies as a "big name" store same as Apple or Google, right?

Yes. That's why I listed it right next to Apple and Microsoft in my response.

https://www.rif.org

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#169

Post by Arnt »

fencepost wrote: post #146
Arnt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought quite a few around 2012, sure, but it tapered off. I don't think I've bought any apps as one-time purchases in the past five years, it's all yearly subscriptions now. All the ones I see on my main phone screen right now are subscription-based or free. What are some well-known apps sold as one-time purchases now?

Looking in the Play Store at "Top Paid" seems like a bunch of one-time purchases listed. I think a lot of it may be a difference between Android and iOS - Apple software seems to have a lot more subscriptions, but that's just an anecdata 'feel'.

My 100% subscriptions in the past years is on Android, actually.

What I've heard is that one-time purchases lead to a lack of income after three years, when people expect upgrades. That's not a problem for app developers who don't plan to do any upgrades, of course.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#170

Post by bdavbdav »

gruez wrote: post #91
rob74 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it'd better continue to be available, seeing that Amazon's devices don't support the Google Play store...

It might not be "supported", but I thought you could easily sideload play store and play services? You don't even need to muck around with rooting or even adb.

Not at all easy. It’s a PITA using all sorts of odd sources.
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