Brings hundreds of platform updates and exclusive new features,
including the Mayday button, X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, 1-Tap
Archive, Cloud Collections, Quiet Time, Optimizing Download Manager, and
Social Integration with Goodreads and Facebook
New enterprise and productivity features—including printing, email
conversation view, enterprise encryption and mobile device
management—BYOD support
Apps and games built for Android are compatible with Fire OS
Fire OS 3.0 available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD &
Kindle Fire HDX tablets
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 25, 2013--
Amazon.com today introduced Fire OS 3.0 “Mojito,” the next generation of
software and services that powers the best-selling Kindle Fire tablets,
with hundreds of updates and exclusive new features to give customers a
simple OS experience with Android app compatibility. Fire OS starts with
Android and adds:
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Low-level platform enhancements, including: the Optimizing Download
Manager, re-designed graphics pipeline, Reading Mode, and improvements
to touch latency for better performance.
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Productivity apps with enhanced email, documents, and enterprise
support with hardware and software data encryption.
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Deep integration of the hardware, software and services to deliver
features like X-Ray, the Mayday button, Second Screen, and more.
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Built-in media libraries for instant access to music, movies, apps,
and games both stored on the device or in the cloud, and automatically
syncs between them.
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Content-first user interface with both Carousel and Grid views.
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Cloud services like Whispersync, 1-Tap Archive and Cloud Collections.
Fire OS 3.0 is available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD and
Kindle Fire HDX—read a separate press release at: www.amazon.com/kindle-pr.
“Fire OS includes the core email and productivity apps, but we take a
different approach when it comes to content,” said Dave Limp, Vice
President, Amazon Kindle. “Our content-first approach shapes the design
of Fire OS—the home screen makes the most recent content items available
instantly on the Carousel or Grid and customers can move between their
media libraries both on the device and in the cloud with a simple tap.
We’ve also deeply integrated Amazon services directly into Mojito, such
as the Mayday button, Second Screen, X-Ray for Movies & TV shows, and
now X-Ray for Music.”
“Fire OS lets developers offer their Android apps on Kindle Fire with
little to no work,” said Mike George, Vice President, Amazon Appstore.
“Developers can integrate services like Whispersync for Games,
GameCircle, In-App Purchasing, and Amazon’s Mobile Associates into their
apps to take advantage of the Amazon Appstore’s increased monetization
and customer engagement.”
Fire OS features for Android apps and games:
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Native Android App Compatibility is supported by Fire OS, so if
an app runs on Android it can run on Fire OS with little to no work.
Fire OS is built from the Android open source kernel and runtime
libraries and is consistently tested for Android app compatibility.
Amazon also offers developers an integrated ecosystem for building,
monetizing and marketing their apps and games for Fire OS, which
results in better customer engagement.
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Support for HTML5 Apps allows developers to offer their web
apps and mobile websites on Kindle Fire tablets to customers in the
same, convenient way as mobile apps. As one of the only platforms to
offer this level of HTML5 support, developers can submit and
distribute mobile web content without using third-party software or
any mobile development.
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GameCircle and Whispersync for Games give developers the
opportunity to allow customers to sync their game progress and scores
across devices, and to quickly integrate Achievements and Leaderboards
into their games.
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In-App Purchasing and Mobile Associates lets developers give
customers the opportunity to buy digital and physical items, such as
toys, upgrades and game pieces from Amazon.com and use their Amazon
accounts to make the purchase directly from within an app.
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Amazon Device Messaging gives customers a single messaging
platform for all their apps built on Amazon Web Services, which
developers can take advantage of to send notifications to Kindle Fire
tablets.
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Amazon Coins offers every new Kindle Fire customer 500 coins
($5) of virtual currency to use for purchasing apps, games, or in-app
items on Kindle Fire. Amazon Coins is an easy way for customers to
spend money on developers’ apps and offers another opportunity to
drive traffic and app downloads increasing monetization even further.
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Accessibility Tools including Screen Reader, Explore by Touch
and Screen Magnifier enable access to the vast majority of Fire OS
features. Text-to-Speech for book reading features natural-sounding
IVONA voices for the following languages: US, British and Australian
English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and
French Canadian. Fire OS 3.0 supports standard Android Text-to-Speech
APIs, so developers can take advantage of IVONA voices for third-party
apps.
Cloud services and user interface improvements:
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Carousel and Grid views let customers choose how they want to
navigate their content. With a swipe, the redesigned Fire OS home
screen easily switches between viewing their recent content on the
Carousel or their favorites in Grid view.
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Cloud Collections organizes apps, books, newspapers, and
magazines, making them easier to find. Collections are automatically
stored in the cloud and Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes
collections across Kindle devices and apps.
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1-Tap Archive frees up space on Kindle Fire tablets by
identifying items that have not been used recently and provides a
1-tap option to store them in the Cloud for later retrieval.
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Kindle FreeTime gives parents the ability to more easily
whitelist movies, books, apps and games appropriate for their kids’
enjoyment with the new “For Kids” suggestions.
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Social Integration gives customers OS-level sharing
capabilities for Facebook and Twitter. With Facebook, customers also
get contacts, events and photos integration.
Revolutionary Mayday Button:
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The Mayday Button delivers revolutionary on-device tech support
and is available 24x7, 365 days a year, for free. 15 seconds or less
is the Mayday response time goal. The Mayday button is built into
Quick Settings and an Amazon expert will appear on the Fire HDX and
can co-pilot a customer through any feature by drawing on the screen,
walking them through how to do something themselves or doing it for
them. See the separate press release and preview three upcoming TV ads
that show how the Mayday button works: www.amazon.com/mayday.
Deeply-integrated content features:
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Goodreads is built into the reading experience, so customers
can see what friends are reading, get recommendations, share quotes,
and write reviews from within the book.
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X-Ray for Movies and TV now shows the names of TV theme or
movie soundtrack songs as they play as well as trivia and goofs while
watching a movie or TV show. Powered by IMDb, X-Ray for TV will also
provide character backstories as the actor appears on screen.
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X-Ray Expands to Music with synchronized lyrics that lets
customers follow along line-by-line with a song. Lyrics are available
even when Kindle Fire is not connected to Wi-Fi or 4G.
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Second Screen allows customers to fling content from their Fire
to their TV, turning the TV into the primary screen and freeing
up their Fire as a second screen to email, browse the web, play a
game, or follow along scene-by-scene with X-Ray. The Fire screen is
not just a mirror image of the TV. Instead, when the customer flings
the video to the TV, Fire syncs the video and the X-Ray data in the
cloud and streams the video directly to the TV, so the quality of the
video is not dependent the tablet’s processor or networking. The
customer can even take their tablet to another room and leave the
video playing on the TV.
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Quiet Time, directly accessed from the quick settings menu,
lets you mute all incoming notifications or calendar reminders. In
addition, Quiet Time can be tied to a particular activity such as
reading.
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Quick Switch uses a global swipe gesture from anywhere in the
system to go between multiple apps, and unlike standard Android, works
with individual content items like different textbooks without
navigating home.
Low-level platform enhancements:
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Optimizing Download Manager enables parallel content downloads.
Unlike standard Android, Fire OS adjusts the number of simultaneous
downloads per device, so that foreground app performance is not
impacted by background download activity. In addition, the Optimizing
Download Manager automatically pauses ongoing content downloads when
the customer starts streaming an Amazon Instant Video to maximize
video quality. Customers can prioritize individual items to download
first, and with progressive download they can open videos, Audible
audiobooks, or magazines and start enjoying them while the download is
still ongoing.
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Graphics Direct Texture replaces the standard Android graphics
pipeline. The Fire OS graphics system is customized to quickly load
large graphical assets like the high-resolution cover art in the Fire
OS home screen. Graphics Direct Texture enables the Carousel and the
Fire OS media libraries to include large, detailed images and still
load quickly and scroll smoothly.
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Touch Responsiveness is improved by low-level changes to the
way Fire OS 3.0 handles taps and swipes. For example, the system
dynamically increases the CPU speed after the customer lifts their
finger off the screen, to minimize touch latency in games and apps.
And when a customer taps an app in the Carousel or Grid views, the
system removes unnecessary OS overhead activities and drives the app
start animation directly to the GPU, so that the app starts to open
immediately.
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Reading Mode gives customers up to 17 hours of battery life
when reading. Fire OS automatically powers down unnecessary system
components when customers are reading static pages, storing the text
in a dedicated, low-power memory, and powering down the CPU.
New enterprise and productivity features:
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Enhanced Email makes it easier to set up email accounts, and
groups conversations by subject with threaded messaging and sync.
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Printing support for wireless printers is now available for
documents.
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Enterprise Support with software data encryption on Kindle Fire
HD and hardware data encryption on Kindle Fire HDX; the ability to
connect to secure enterprise Wi-Fi networks and access corporate apps,
documents and resources like SharePoint; native VPN client for instant
access to corporate networks; a native SCEP (Simple Certificate
Exchange Protocol) client to retrieve digital certificates for secure
resources; and a rich set of Kindle-specific device management APIs
that integrate with a wide range of existing mobile device management
(MDM) systems, including Amazon’s Whispercast service and 3rd party
vendors like AirWatch, Citrix, Fiberlink, Good Technology and SOTI.
Fire OS 3.0 also supports Kerberos authentication, which enables
seamless enterprise single sign-on and the ability to browse secure
Intranet websites from the Silk browser on Kindle Fire.
Developers:
Developers consistently report how simple it is to bring their Android
apps to the Fire OS platform and how they see increased monetization and
engagement with their apps and games on Kindle Fire. Here’s what they
have to say:
Imangi Studios is the creator of the popular game Temple Run. “We’ve
integrated with Amazon’s In-App Purchasing and GameCircle APIs, which
was a breeze,” says Keith Shephard, CEO of Imangi Studios. “We’ve seen
significantly higher customer engagement with Temple Run since the
integration, making the few, short steps worth it.”
“Since the launch of the very first Kindle Fire, Gameloft has been a
strong believer in Amazon’s ability to bring a great user experience to
digital gamers,” said Baudouin Corman, VP of Publishing for the
Americas, Gameloft, developers of Asphalt 8 & Despicable Me: Minon Rush.
“From recommendations and reviews to GameCircle, Amazon is building the
kind of strong ecosystem we want for our products.”
“Amazon continues to monetize incredibly well for us,” said Mike
Sandwick, Manager of Strategic Partnerships, TinyCo, the mobile gaming
developers behind Tiny Village. “Kindle Fire devices consistently
deliver high LTVs across all of our titles.”
“We're extremely happy with the per-user monetization we’ve achieved
on Amazon with our games,” said Arlin Schaffel at Noodlecake Studios,
publisher of Super Stickman Golf. “We regularly see more than double
the per-user spend on Amazon compared to other app stores. As
Amazon continues to expand worldwide, we’re excited to see our revenue
grow along with them.”
Fire OS 3.0 is available exclusively on the all-new Kindle Fire HD and
Kindle Fire HDX tablets. Some of these features will be available
mid-November as part of the free, over-the-air Fire OS 3.1 update www.amazon.com/fireos.
Developers can learn more about Fire OS 3.0 at http://developer.amazon.com/sdk/fireos.html.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. Kindle Paperwhite is the world’s best-selling and most
advanced e-reader. It features new display technology with higher
contrast, the next generation built-in light, a faster processor, the
latest touch technology, and exclusive new features designed from the
ground up for readers. Kindle, the lightest and smallest Kindle,
features improved fonts and faster page turns. The new Kindle Fire HDX
features a stunning exclusive 7” or 8.9” HDX display, a quad-core 2.2
GHz processor, 2x more memory, and 11 hours of battery life, as well as
exclusive new features of Fire OS 3.0 including X-Ray for Music, Second
Screen, Prime Instant Video downloads, and the revolutionary new Mayday
button. The all-new Kindle Fire HD includes an HD display,
high-performance processor, and dual speakers at a breakthrough price.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
www.amazon.it,
www.amazon.es,
www.amazon.com.br,
www.amazon.in,
and www.amazon.com.mx.
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment and
data center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements,
acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system
interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments
and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect
Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

Source: Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon.com, Inc.
Media Hotline, 206-266-7180
www.amazon.com/pr
kindlepr@amazon.com