Google Play Store is not supported on Amazon Fire devices, but there is evidently a way to get Play Store APK files on an Amazon Fire device which will then allow apps to be installed from the Play Store. Has anyone done this and successfully installed and run Nomad on an Amazon Fire device. I'm looking at the HD8 (2022) which supports both 32-bit and 64-bit apps according to https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-tablets/ft-device-specifications-firehd-models.html?v=firehd8_2022
Hi Don,
Jeremy from the development team here. We haven't tested Nomad with any Amazon Fire devices and there are a few things that may cause trouble.
In our experience, running Nomad on devices with less than 2GB of RAM is problematic. The low end model has 2GB, so you're right at the limit.
Also, we leverage the Android System WebView (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.webview). That's installed by default on all Android devices, but I don't believe that the Fire devices include it. If the WebView that they provide offers the same APIs, then it should be okay, but if not, then you may encounter random issues.
If Amazon Fire support is something that you need, then please open up an entry for this on our Ideas Portal (https://domino-ideas.hcltechsw.com/) so that our product management team can evaluate doing so.
Regards,
Jeremy
Thanks Jeremy.
I the WebView provided by Amazon does not offer the same APIs, then do you expect it should it be a matter of installing it from the Google Play Store, once the steps are completed in the link from my original post to enable it?
Prior to posting here, I was searching for Nomad for Android requirments and found very little. I was only able to find that it required a 64-bit OS and a minimum Android OS level, which the Amazon Fire HD8 does. I could not find detailed memory or storage requirements. The Amazon Fire HD8+ includes 3GB of RAM, so I'll try that first.
As for needing Amazon Fire support, Amazon's tablets appear to be the most economical tablet around. I would think most wanting to run Nomad who don't already have a tablet would start with Amazon. I'm working on a pilot, that if successful, would potentially put Nomad on dozens or even hundreds of tablets in the field.
Another request...could you post (or point me to) which Android devices have been tested? Also, where would I find the RAM requirements? Since 2GB of RAM is problematic, shouldn't the minimum requirement of 3GB RAM be documented with the requirements?
Hi Don,
I didn't mean to imply that 2GB is bad and 3GB is good; there's not a clear dividing line where it will suddenly stop working. Android is designed to degrade gracefully when under memory pressure, so you're not likely to flat out run out of memory. What will happen is that as Android kills background apps and services to free up memory for the foreground app, you'll notice that the device starts running more slowly than normal. Google publishes what they call a Compatibility Definition for each Android version, which guarantees a certain amount of memory for apps, among other things. For the Android versions we support, the Compatibility Definition guarantees us enough RAM to ensure a reasonable experience. I only mentioned 2GB since that was our rationale for not supporting Android Go, and since Kindle Fire devices are not true Android, they don't have the same Compatibility Definition guarantees.
We don't have a published list of all of the devices that we test with, but we do test across a wide swath of device configurations, with special emphasis on the devices we know people are using the most. We do regular testing on phones and tablets, different manufacturers (Samsung, Google, and many others), all of our supported Android versions, and also ChromeOS devices.
Regards,
Jeremy
Hi Don,
On Android devices, you can have two WebViews installed, but you have to go into Developer Options to select which one you want as the default for apps to use. I don't know if Amazon exposes that same setting.
Google enforces that devices running Android meet certain hardware requirements, which lets us avoid having to list everything that's needed. But the RAM requirement is why we don't support Android Go devices, as they can go down to as little as 512MB of RAM. Also, the 2GB is not a hard limit, but in our testing, we started hitting RAM issues once we went below that.
Regards,
Jeremy
The following link seems to support your concern. Evidently the WebView can be updated but causes problems with other apps that use the Amazon WebView.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/switch-to-android-webview-from-amazon.4177649/
There is also a way to test an app without having an Amazon device, which may be worth a try.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-tablets/ft-testing-without-an-amazon-device.html
I'm not sure know how to get Nomad installed on the virtual device. Google Play Store is not supported on Amazon Fire devices, but there is a way to install the Google Play Store on an Amazon device.
https://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-google-play-store-on-your-amazon-fire-tablet/#:~:text=Amazon%20Fire%20Tablets%20restrict%20you,%2C%20Google%20Maps%2C%20and%20more.
As suggested, I submitted an entry on the Ideas Portal.