Given that Amazon is selling the Kindle Fire at a loss in order to sell more of its own content, no one has been sure what kinds of apps it would allow users to download from its own curated Android Market. The answer from the company today is a lot of them.
Amazon released a statement announcing that customers will be able to choose from “several thousand of the most popular Android apps and games, including Netflix, Rhapsody, Pandora, Twitter, Comics by comiXology, Facebook, The Weather Channel and popular games from Zynga, EA, Gameloft, PopCap and Rovio.”
Kindle Fire customers will be able to download these apps and games without having to register multiple times and using Amazon’s 1-Click payment technology. Amazon says it has tested all the apps on the Kindle Fire.
“We started talking to app developers everywhere the day we introduced Kindle Fire, and the response has been overwhelming,” said Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle. “In addition to over 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, and magazines from Amazon, we are excited to offer customers thousands of apps and games to choose from on Kindle Fire – from Pandora and Rhapsody to Facebook and Twitter to Netflix, as well as popular games from EA, Zynga and many other top game developers.”
One can only guess that competing eReader apps from Barnes & Noble and Kobo will not be included in Amazon’s app store for the Kindle Fire.
Barnes & Noble has kept to a similar apps strategy for its Nook Color and Nook Tablet devices, offering users a carefully curated catalog of Android apps.