[tomsem]

Amazon arbitrarily and often falsely labels apps in the Appstore as 'incompatible' with Fire tablets. Two categories singled out for this embargo are third party reading apps and web browsers. This used to annoy me a great deal, even though people would try to represent that this was okay because you can side-load apps.

It is not really 'okay,' particularly since this behavior is nowhere honestly and openly disclosed by Amazon (even to developers). Apple can be arbitrary too, but at least they give reasons and some of it is even documented in their iOS guidelines. But as I carry at least 3 mobile devices nearly everywhere I go, it does not matter any more if I cannot purchase and download Mantano Reader directly from the Appstore (even though it runs perfectly fine). I have an Android smartphone, and an iPad. And much as I like Mantano as an app, I hardly ever use it, and have not bothered to side load it on my newest Fire. I purchase very few apps for my Fire: it's for consuming Amazon content, of which I have plenty. So Apple and Google get just about all of the app money I spend. The Fire cost me very little, leaving me with money to purchase another device that has a better app store for everything else that I want to do with a tablet. I like the Fire for what it does, not for what it doesn't do, or do as well as other platforms.

Things have improved, however: it used to be the case that Dropbox and OneDrive were embargoed. Now you can get them directly, and I assume that when Office for Android ships, we'll be able to get that too.

I imagine the reason they block third party browsers is because they find it of some value to know something about the sites people are visiting, and Silk does this for them. I don't really do a lot of web browsing on my Fire, so I don't care. I installed Maxthon (can download and install .apk from their web site), but never use it.

As for embargoing reading apps, it is probably true that any money they'd make by selling Aldiko or Mantano (of course free apps don't contribute to their bottom line at all) would be far offset to the extent people actually used them to read content they did not purchase from Amazon. They don't make much on devices, so it doesn't fit their business model to offer alternate ways to consume ebooks: they gotta sell you at least a few ebooks. The same doesn't apply to video (netflix, hulu++) or music (pandora, tunein) because these are seen as 'mainstays' that people expect to have everywhere, and which Amazon cannot replace with their own offerings, due to licensing issues. It is in part because they have a Netflix app that people are willing to buy a Fire. Books, however, take a lot more time to consume and essentially the same selection is available from any of the major storefronts, and DRM notwithstanding, they are portable.