Amazon Fire TV / Tab
Installing Google Play
Introduction
While browsing through the fine selection of products discounted on Amazon Black Friday sale two products caught my eye, namely; the Amazon Fire 7" Tablet and the Amazon Fire TV stick both of which make for the perfect stocking filler coming in at under £30 each.
While both devices run the same 1.3ghz quad core processor, a mere single GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage expandable in the Fire Tablet neither of them struggle in day to day usage and will be covered in more detail in my upcoming reviews.
Unfortunately the one let down with the pre-mentioned devices are they do not come installed with the Google Play Store rather the Amazon Appstore, don’t get me wrong the Amazon Appstore does have several popular titles under its belt and provides a fair amount of content however having to repurchase any applications that I already owned via the Google Play Store or having to find an alternative in some cases is probably the only draw back I managed to find when taking the price of the device into consideration.
Luckily the guys over on XDA have managed to find a way in which you can sideload the Google Play Store to almost any Fire OS Device.
Difficulty Level — ★★☆☆☆
This guide will only require the understanding of being able to install APK files to your device using a file manager of your choice, using this method does not require root and will not void your warranty. On the off chance that something does go wrong I am not accountable for any damage that may be caused to your device, you are proceeding at your own risk.
Requirements
The requirements for this tutorial are as follows;
- Amazon Fire TV or Tablet Device,
- File Manager Application (I recommend ES File Explorer),
- Cloud Storage Solution (Google Drive, Onedrive etc),
- Alternatively A Local Storage Device (USB, Hard Drive etc),
- A Google Account.
- Google Play Framework Files (goo.gl/b4XCXN)
Tips & Tricks
Before we begin I will inform you that while the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick can run the Google Play Store navigation can be rather cumbersome and I would recommend using an external mouse and keyboard if possible.
Tutorial
Follow the steps in the guide provided below and you should have the Google Play Store installed onto your Fire OS device within 10 minutes depending on your internet connection. If you do run into any issues feel free to contact me on Twitter for support.
- Using the link provided in the requirements section to download the APK files I have shared from my Google Drive to your computer.
- Move the downloaded files to a storage medium of your choice whether it be a local or cloud storage solution, for this example I will be using Google Drive.
- Move over to your Amazon device and ensure you have set up the device and signed in with your Amazon account so that you may download applications from the Amazon Appstore.
- Once you have access to the Amazon Appstore search for ES File Explorer and download it, once downloaded it will show up on your application page.
- Before we can sideload any applications make your way over to your settings application, open the security tab and enable the option that says “Install from unknown sources”.
- Open ES File Explorer and navigate to either; your locally connected storage device or if using a cloud service like myself head to the cloud storage menu located on the left hand side, select your cloud storage solution and sign in.
- Now that you have your storage solution open you must install the APK files you downloaded in this order for the process to work; Google Services Framework, Google Play Services, Google Account Manager and finally the Google Play Store.
- Return to your home menu and you should see the Google Play Store is now installed, open the app and sign in with your Google Account.
- Search for the YouTube application within Google Play and install it as it will upgrade the necessary Google Play Services Framework.
- Finally, Reboot, After that you should be all good to go, I found a large majority of the applications that I already owned turned out to be compatible with both devices and ran fairly well.
As previously mentioned anyone that does find themselves stuck with this guide can contact me via Twitter and I will try my best to help out.
