Kindle Fire Application Development

The Kindle Fire is a tablet computer version of Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader. Announced on 28 September 2011, the Kindle Fire has a color 7" multi-touch display with IPS technology and runs a forked version of Google's Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system. The device — which includes access to the Amazon Appstore, streaming movies and TV shows, and Kindle's e-books — was released on November 15, 2011.

Amazon initially planned to build 3.5 million Kindle Fire devices in the first production run. Due to customer demand this was later increased first to 4 million and subsequently 5 million devices. Clearly there is going to be a large market waiting for any applications developed for the Kindle Fire.

Setting Kindle Development Environment with Eclipse

System Requirements

Kindle Fire application development may be performed on any of the following system types:

Windows XP (32-bit)

Windows Vista (32-bit or 64-bit)

Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit)

Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later (Intel based systems only)

Linux systems with version 2.7 or later of GNU C Library (glibc)

Installing the Java Development Kit (JDK)

Kindle Fire development requires the installation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit version 5 or later. Java is provided in both development (JDK) and runtime (JRE) packages. For the purposes of Kindle Fire development the JDK installation must be installed.

Download Eclipse IDE

You can download the eclipse IDE from here.

Installing Android Setup on Eclipse

1. Download the Android SDK, unzip it and place it at some location on your system.

2. Install and configure ADT plugin.

Creating a Kindle Fire Android Virtual Device (AVD)

An Android application for the Kindle Fire may be tested by installing and running it on either a physical device or in an Android Virtual Device (AVD) emulator environment. Before an AVD can be used it must first be created and configured to match the specification of the Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire AVD Specifications

In order to provide accurate emulation of a Kindle Fire an AVD will need to be created with the following properties:

Target - Android 2.3.3 (API Level 10)

Resolution - 600 x 1024

Device RAM Size - 512Mb

Abstracted LCD density - 169

Begin the AVD creation process by clicking on the New… button in order to invoke the Create a New Android Virtual Device (AVD) dialog. Within the dialog, perform the following steps to create a Kindle Fire compatible emulator:

1. Enter a descriptive name (for example KindleFire) into the name field. Note that spaces and other special characters are not permitted in the name.

2. Use the Target menu to select the Android 2.3.3 – API Level 10 SDK option.

3. In the Skin section select the Resolution option and enter 600 x 1024.

4. Click on the current Abstracted LCD Density value located in the Hardware section and change it to 169.

5. Click on the Device ram size value and change it to 512.

Creating Sample Application

1. To create the new project, select the File -> New -> Project… menu option. In the resulting Select a Wizard dialog unfold the Android category and select Android Project from the list

2. With the Android Project option selected click on the Next > button to proceed with the creation process. In the Create Android Project window name the project KindleSampleApp and leave the remaining options set to the default settings before clicking Next > to move to the Select Build Target screen

3. The screen will display a list of SDKs currently installed on the system. For the purposes of this example, select the Android 2.3.3 SDK and deselect any other SDKs which may currently be selected.

4. With the correct SDK target selected, click on Next > to proceed to the Application Info screen. Here you need to add various details for the app.

Application Name: KindleSampleApp

Package Name: inder.kindle.sample.app

Activity: HelloWord

MinSDKVersion: 10

5. To run the application, application name in the Project Explorer and select Run As -> Android Application from the resulting menu.