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 ...

‡ And of course that link appears to be dead (archive.org only has it online until about 2022). I’ll rant about lost “institutional” (is that the right word here?) knowledge another time; I’m glad archive.org exists, I wish people would live old content (and linked files) up and accessible though. Anyway... The steps are:

• Enable installation from unknown sources (on an Android 5.1.1 (Cyanogenmod 12.1) device, I found it under Settings / Security / Unknown sources; other versions will differ).
• Install the APKs for the Google Account Manager, Google Services Framework, Google Play Services, and finally the Google Play Store. Use the Files app to browse to Downloads and open them in this order (after installing, click “Done” not “Open”):
• com.google.gsf.login
• com.google.android.gsf
• com.google.android.gms
• com.android.vending
• Hold down the power button and select “restart” or, on older devices, shut it down, and then power it back on.
• “[O]pen the new Play Store app from the home screen. From there, the Play Store should ask you to login with your Google account, and then finally allow you to download and install apps.”