Kindle Fire OS Tour

Kindle Fire OS Tour

To the average consumer, the Kindle Fire won't be about specs. Of course, they certainly help when running apps or movies or books. Rather, much of the experience will be spent browsing through the software, getting around to different areas on the device. Amazon has gone to great lengths redesigning and re-skinning Google's Android OS to make for a more intuitive and user friendly experience. Amazon's goal is, after all, to encourage consumers to consume media through their enormous ecosystem. Does their redesign succeed?
As a device that will attract people unfamiliar with tablets, the UI is easy and simple, though it's not perfect. In the absence of widgets or spaces, Amazon's "forked" Android offers a virtual bookshelf that acts as the home screen. The top menu bar -- time, battery, Wi-Fi -- displays a convenient, although sometimes hard to press, cog icon that reveals settings like Volume, Brightness and Wi-Fi, and just beneath that there is a search bar that will let users search through their media library or the web. Curiously, the Fire doesn't have a volume rocker anywhere, so users will be accessing the settings menu quite a bit through the icon at the top.
Also at the top is a media bar where users can navigate between Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, etc., along with a Web option that makes accessing Amazon's Silk web browser simple.
Below that, and displayed most prominently, are the most recently used apps where users can swipe through similar to Apple's Cover Flow. Also on the home screen is a shelf for your favorite apps where users can add their favorite media (books, apps, videos) and rearrange them ala the iPad's drag and drop.
Check out the video to get a more in depth sense of what using the Kindle Fire will be like, and stay tuned for further coverage. There is a lot to admire, and as Amazon's first effort, they did a great job simplifying Android. There are a few quirks here and there, but nothing that broke the overall experience.
How are you liking Amazon's "forked" Android experience? http://tchno.be/tCEBpf

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[T4nm4y]

The awkward moment when your mom walks in and Youtube freezes, and all she sees is Jon about to click on a magazine with a girl in a bikini...

[redialator]

that awkward moment where you open your Kindle Fire for the first time, go to the Books section and see Steve Jobs in the first row...

[ihavethelastusername]

Hey does anyone else have trouble doing a google image search? When scrolling up and down through the images its overly sensitive and when you click on an image and try to zoom in the image gets moved downward so as long as youre zoomed in you can only see the top of the image.

[kevinw1612]

@GarageBandify That's the point the Kindle was made to be a home entertainment system if you will. Where you can read, watch, and do what you want. While the iPad is made for anything, but is over prized, and if you think about it you payed like 2 hundred dollars for this iBooks app. If you want to compare a iBooks app to the Kindle Fire.

[bobmclightning]

@GarageBandify It works great for a tablet at It's price. For people who are good with money and don't want to spend 450-800 dollars on something a regular PC can do.

[SweetGoldHearts]

@GarageBandify but the kindle costs less

[GarageBandify]

Kindle was designed for reading books. Now its just a regular tablet. just go buy an iPad with the ibooks app instead of buying this

[PoshBehaviorTV]

@yoyoking000 Yes the kindle can go on Youtube

[Eisner45]

@King0fHarts sorry. I meant to say: U mean Eisner as in Great barrington, ma?

[Eisner45]

@King0fHarts U mean eisnernas in great barrington, ma?

[King0fHarts]

@Eisner45 Who are you? I go to eisner.