Android

Introduction

To start developing apps for Fire tablets, set up your development environment using the standard tools for Android development.

Note: Android no longer supports the Eclipse ADT plugin. We recommend that you use Android Studio.

Setting Up Android Studio

Hardware Profiles For Android Studio

Android Virtual Devices Repository This repo is a collection of pre-configured Android emulator configuration files (AVD and ini files) and definitions (in devices.xml file). Specifically, these are intended to assist web developers with testing websites across a multitude of versions of Androids with different device configurations. Download Android Studio: Go to Android Studio. If the browser has detected your operating system, click Download Android Studio. Otherwise, click Download Options and select a different platform: Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. Unzip and install the bundle. It includes essential components and the Studio IDE. Launch Android Studio.

See Getting Started with Android Studio for information about setting up the Android Studio development environment. If you have an existing installation of Android Studio or the Android Gradle Plugin, refer to Android Tools Version Compatibility to ensure that they are compatible.

Hardware Profiles For Android Studio 7

Obtaining the Windows USB Driver

If you are a Windows-based developer, you will need to manually download the Windows USB driver. (This driver was previously included in the SDK add-on.) See Connect to Fire Tablet through ADB for instructions on downloading the driver and setting up your tablet and computer.

Native Code Development (Optional)

Fire tablets support apps that include native code compiled with the Android NDK.

Hardware Profiles Download For Android Studio

The following table shows the NDK revision for compiling your native-code apps to take advantage of the features available on Fire devices. For information about installing the NDK, see Android NDK.

Profiles
TabletCompile native-code apps with
Fire (2015) and later tabletsAndroid Studio 2.2 or later with integrated CMake or NDK
Fire HDX 8.9 (2014) Fire HD 7 (2014) Fire HD 6 (2014) Android NDK Revision 9b or later
Fire Phone Kindle Fire HDX 8.9' (2013) Kindle Fire HDX 7' (2013) Kindle Fire HD 7' (2013) Android NDK Revision 8e or later
Kindle Fire HD 8.9' (2012) Kindle Fire HD 7' (2012) Kindle Fire 7' (2012) Android NDK Revision 7 or later
Kindle Fire (2011)Android NDK Revision 5 or later

Last updated: Oct 29, 2020

Selecting Add Device Definition... from the Device in Editor drop-down will open the AVD manager. To create a new hardware profile click on the Create Virtual Device... button. The Select Hardware dialog allows us to install and edit all the device profiles listed in the previous drop-down as well as the option to create or import a definition.

A standalone version of the AVD manager can be run from userAppDataLocalAndroidsdk. This can be useful on lower end machines, as AVDs can be booted up without Studio running.

It is usually easier to take an existing definition and adapt it to our needs, but to gain further insight into the operation, here we will create one from scratch by clicking on the New Hardware Profile ...