Friday, December 16, 2011

Finally I got Android Market on Kindle Fire

Finally, after couple unsuccessful attempts of installing Android Market without rooting my device, I decided to root it. Thanks to The Unofficial Kindle Fire Blog article I was convinced that I can unroot it later.

[caption id="attachment_914" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Android SDK Manager"]Android SDK Manager[/caption]

I already got few first steps covered cause I got Java Development KitMicrosoft .NET Framework and Android SDK installed. I had to download SuperOneClick. Since I haven't done any development on Android besides trying to setup some samples to run on emulator my KIndle Fire was not detected. Amazon Appstore Developer FAQ got precise description (PDF) how to make it happen. The missing step was to update USB driver in Windows Device Manager with the one that Google provides with Android SDK. Unfortunately reboot is required on Windows. After that I could follow steps, run SuperOneClick and reboot Kindle Fire.



[caption id="attachment_915" align="aligncenter" width="175" caption="Android Market"]Android Market[/caption]


Installing Android Market was actually a little bit complicated. Again I got few steps covered by my previous attempts. I already tried to sideload some apps and this option is enabled on my device. In addition it is possible to install GoogleServicesFramework.apk without rooting device so I did it when I was loading some other Google apps. I only needed actual Market app (Vending.apk)and something given in this recipe: MarketOpener.apk. Up to this point it was going according to the plan. Then next step filed. I do not know what is wrong with current version of File Expert available on Amazon Appstore but it does not properly copy files to /system/app directory. Be aware that version 4.0.3 is not working with his recipe. I was trying to copy or cut Vending.apk from my Download directory and paste it to /system/app but it did not happen. I found Root Exploder on this blog. It was able to complete what File Expert could not do. I was able to change permissions of Vending.apk and install MarketOpener.apk. After rebooting I connected my device to my desktop machine and run SuperOneClick to unroot it. Now Androit Makert is functional. Of course it can only allow to install applications that Google marks as compatible with Kindle Fire (sometimes Amazon marks app compatible while Google claims is not).


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