Amazon Abandonment Amazon remembers it has an Android app store, kills it Fire tablets and Fire TV devices will still have access to apps, though. Ryan Whitwam Feb 20, 2025 12:35 pm | 10 Credit: Ryan Whitwam Credit: Ryan Whitwam Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAfter 14 years of trying and failing to gain a smartphone foothold, Amazon has announced it will discontinue its app store. Anyone who has content in Amazon's store will be able to access it for now, but all bets are off beginning on August 20, 2025. As part of the pull-back, the company is also discontinuing the Amazon Coins digital currency.The Amazon Appstore made waves when it launched in 2011, offering an alternative to what at the time was known as the Android Market. Amazon even scored some early exclusives and gave away a plethora of premium content and Coins to anyone willing to do the legwork of installing the storefront on their Android phone.That level of attention didn't last, though, and the Appstore today has hardly evolved from its humble beginnings, lacking most of the content and features people have come to expect from a mobile app store. If you want to check out the store on your phone before it goes away, you'll have to sideload the client by downloading an APK from Amazon. This process isn't hard, but it proved to be a significant barrier to entry for getting people into the Amazon ecosystem.Amazon says it has stopped selling Coins effective today, but you can still spend any of the currency already attached to your account. However, you'd be spending it on content that may or may not be available on your phone later this year. A better idea might be to continue ignoring the Appstore like you probably have for yearsif you have any paid Coins remaining in your account when the shutdown date rolls around, Amazon will simply refund you. The selection in the Amazon Appstore is pretty much what you'd expect. Credit: Ryan Whitwam The selection in the Amazon Appstore is pretty much what you'd expect. Credit: Ryan Whitwam This is an interesting time for Amazon to throw in the towel. The Appstore's continued existence came up repeatedly in Google's 2023 antitrust case with Epic Games. While Google contended that Amazon's presence in the market supported its position that the Play Store was not an illegal monopoly, Epic produced an expert who testified that the Amazon Appstore was only present on 0.1 percent of Android phones. And that says nothing about how many people were actually using the store they'd installed.As a result of its loss in that case, Google may be forced to open Android up to third-party app stores by sharing the Google Play app catalog and distributing other stores. That will give a boost to platforms like Epic Games and Microsoft. Amazon could have benefitted as well, at least in theory. The company's decision to end phone support for the Appstore now illustrates how few people used it. Perhaps things would have been different if Microsoft hadn't abandoned the Windows Subsystem for Android in 2024, which used the Amazon Appstore for app distribution.The Fire conundrumThere's another wrinkle for Amazon, which may explain why it has allowed the store to languish so long in this state. While Amazon has given up on competing with Google directly, it can't completely abandon Android apps. The company doesn't make phones (aside from that extremely weird one in 2014), but it does offer a range of Fire tablets and Fire TV streaming boxes that run Android. It would prefer you didn't think of them like that, though.Amazon's Fire devices run a custom version of Android called Fire OS, but Amazon hates to admit that it's Android under the hood; you won't see the word "Android" on any of these product pages. Amazon says the Appstore will continue to exist on Fire devicesit really has no choice, as these devices lack Google services. So, your ultra-budget tablet or Fire TV Stick will still have access to streaming apps and simple games, but future Fire hardware could skip Android altogether.The existence of Android-based Fire hardware may explain why Amazon's language around the shutdown is so vague. Amazon says its apps "will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices" after the shutdown date. Here, "Android devices" means your phoneit doesn't consider Fire tablets and Fire TV to be Android devices, even though they are. If Amazon didn't need to keep the store alive for Fire devices, there would be less uncertainty there.So app access won't be upended for Fire users, who undoubtedly account for the overwhelming bulk of Appstore usage. Thus, Amazon knows there won't be a raft of unhappy customers complaining about losing their apps. Developers who spent time releasing phone-optimized content on the Amazon store might be irked, though. All that work will be for naught once the phone client shuts down. However, there won't be much in the way of lost revenue with so few people using Amazon's store.Ryan WhitwamSenior Technology ReporterRyan WhitwamSenior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he's written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards. 10 Comments