- Mar 24, 2011
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By J. Angelo Racoma April 20, 2014
Amazon is one of those companies that have successfully forked Android into their own ecosystem, particularly with the Kindle Fire line. Intended to be an e-reader and a tablet for consuming digital content, the Kindle Fire ran well with Amazons wide offering of e-books, movies and TV shows, as well as apps in the Amazon Appstore. While the Kindle Fire lines market share is on the decline, Amazon enjoys a healthy revenue stream from the tablet from the sale of digital content.
But underneath it all, the tablet is a fairly capable Android device, and many an enthusiast actually bought the inexpensive Kindle Fire line in order to root and install custom ROMs. Most of these efforts were unsupported ROMs however, most of which were community supported. This is about to change, with the official CyanogenMod 11 support for the 2012 Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7″ and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ introducing KitKat to the device.
Nightly builds are already available on official CM download channels, codenamed tate for the 7″ variant and jem for the 8.9″ device. These will require a rooted device with a custom recovery, which should not be difficult if you are into hacking and tweaking your Android device. Note that there is still no official CM support for the latest Kindle Fire HDX line.
Fire OS, the Android fork that comes with the Kindle Fire line is designed with simplicity in mind, and as such, it is considered to be very limited, especially by Android enthusiasts. Official CM11 support for the device should be a welcome development especially for users who are into breathing new life into older devices or repurposing these through custom ROMs.
Amazon is one of those companies that have successfully forked Android into their own ecosystem, particularly with the Kindle Fire line. Intended to be an e-reader and a tablet for consuming digital content, the Kindle Fire ran well with Amazons wide offering of e-books, movies and TV shows, as well as apps in the Amazon Appstore. While the Kindle Fire lines market share is on the decline, Amazon enjoys a healthy revenue stream from the tablet from the sale of digital content.
But underneath it all, the tablet is a fairly capable Android device, and many an enthusiast actually bought the inexpensive Kindle Fire line in order to root and install custom ROMs. Most of these efforts were unsupported ROMs however, most of which were community supported. This is about to change, with the official CyanogenMod 11 support for the 2012 Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7″ and Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ introducing KitKat to the device.
Nightly builds are already available on official CM download channels, codenamed tate for the 7″ variant and jem for the 8.9″ device. These will require a rooted device with a custom recovery, which should not be difficult if you are into hacking and tweaking your Android device. Note that there is still no official CM support for the latest Kindle Fire HDX line.
Fire OS, the Android fork that comes with the Kindle Fire line is designed with simplicity in mind, and as such, it is considered to be very limited, especially by Android enthusiasts. Official CM11 support for the device should be a welcome development especially for users who are into breathing new life into older devices or repurposing these through custom ROMs.
