Amazon Fire Phone: The Missing Manual

Chapter 12. Downloading and Using Apps

You’ll learn to:

• Find and download apps

• Use Amazon’s Appstore to download apps

• Update, manage, and uninstall apps

• Get 12 great apps

WHAT’S A SMARTPHONE WITHOUT apps? Not much but a paperweight with a phone. Apps are what give the Fire phone its amazing powers. In fact, you’ve been using apps throughout this book and may not even know it. When you check your email on the Fire phone, you’re using an app. When you use the Calendar, Firefly, Instant Video, or Maps, those are apps.

One of the phone’s great features, though, is that it lets you download and use new apps as well—and those new apps do just about everything under the sun (and sometimes things that seem beyond the range of the solar system). In this chapter, you’ll find out how to get and use those apps, as well as how to uninstall and troubleshoot them. It’ll also show you a few of the more amazing apps available as well.

Getting Apps from Amazon’s Appstore

THERE’S ONE MAIN WAY to get apps for your Fire phone: Download them from Amazon’s Appstore. Do it by tapping the Appstore icon on the Carousel or Apps Grid.

Note

You’re not limited to the apps Amazon carries in the Appstore. You can get just about any app onto the Fire using a technique called sideloading. Sideloading can be tricky, but it may be worth the trouble to get an app you really want. See Downloading Apps from the Web for details. ...