Android apps on an older Fire tablet

Long story. I bought a cheap (IIRC it was a Black Friday-ish sale for like $39) Fire HD 8 tablet to have a cheap e-reader, and got a waterproof case to go with it. The case was misidentified and only fit a different generation, which I found on eBay. (Works fine, but of course now the complex hot tub is closed due to COVID-19. But I digress.) I ended up with an “extra” cheap Fire HD 8, apparently a generation 6. It’s been floating around as I haven’t really found a use for it until now, it’s just not in my normal (iPad, iPhone, Mac) workflow, and let’s face it, Android File Transfer is a kludge. Anyway.

Found myself with some spare cycles while I was waiting for a long task to complete, so I dug into things a bit. With FolderSync I was able to get it talking to my WebDAV server, and automatically syncing a directory of files. (First, add an “Account,” then, add a “Folderpair.”)

But in order to get that installed and running, I had to install the Google Play store. Simple instructions to do so here: The ultimate guide for installing the Google Play Store on Amazon Fire tablets

Now, to read the ePubs (mostly technical documentation, some legal publications). On the iPad this is done simply and elegantly in the Books app, but on a Fire HD 8, extra software is needed. I first tried FullReader, which is good not great (and the ads are really intrusive, everywhere except reading in full screen mode). So next up was the old standby, Aldiko. It lags a little on this hardware, but is overall very usable, especially for whatever I have invested in this thing (dozens of dollars?).

Think I still mostly prefer my normal eReader, an old iPad mini 2 with a Logitech Canvas keyboard case. But until I finish my quest to find the most perfect minimalist bicycle commute friendly iPad mini bag ...