Amazon's first smartphone hasn't proven terribly popular, but that doesn't mean it's a bad phone. With a 4.7" screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB RAM, a 13MP camera, and 32GB of storage onboard, it's not a bad phone if you can pick it up for the $199 sale price.
And thanks to a new hack, it's going to get a little better.
Gadgets Xray has posted a how to video which explains the steps required to install Google Play on an unlocked Fire Phone. According to early user reports on XDA Forums, his trick won't work with a unit locked to a network, but the narrator in the video does mention that it works with an unroooted phone.
As you can see in the video, the process is fairly straightforward and works pretty much like the back Google Play hacks I have posted in the past for budget Android tablets.
If you would like to try this yourself, you'll need to download a set of files and install them. And apparently since Silk renames the APK install files to ZIP files, the first step will be to install a file manager which will enable you to rename the files back to APK files.
Just install the four Google files mentioned in the video in the order shown in the video and you should be able to install Play Store apps on the Fire Phone.
I plan to go try it myself (my Fire Phone is charging), and I am deeply curious about how well it will work.
Similar hacks are available for Amazon's Fire tablets, but they don't work very well. Amazon's tablets are missing key parts of Android that Google's apps expect to find. It's kinda like a watch missing gears, with the resulting app on the Fire tablet being equally functional.
Let me know if you get to it before me. I'd like to hear what you think.
I downloaded and installed the 4 .apk’s (in the instructions) on my unlocked Fire Phone. On first try the a Google Play Store stopped running each time I opened the app. But after reinstalling just the Google Play Store executable, it seems to be working fine. I’ve installed Mantano a Reader for example, something which you can’t do from the Amazon App Store. I anticipate Google Play may crash now and again, but it is worthwhile to install this and no root required.
Thanks for the tip Nate!
Hi, Thanks to your help I also did solve the same issue using your provided solution, re-installing the Google Play Store app. Thanks Robert!
FWIW, Amazon hobbles these on the HDX. I think it requires the phone signal to operate.
[…] a 13MP camera, $199 is a reasonable price for the phone. And when you add in the fact that you can sideload Google Play and other Google services, the phone is quite appealing to Amazon's existing […]
The video skipped a part at 1:30. How did he get to that OneDrive Kindle Fire HDX thing?!?!? So frustrating
never mind figured it out but now mine is crashing too. guess i’ll try the reinstall
Useless. It doesn’t work. I constantly encounter the error “Google Play Services has stopped.” Google Play Store does not actually connect.
I’ve tried downloading the latest .apk files of Play Store and Play services, but it has not worked either.
Running Fire OS 3.6.5
Mine was working great for a few months, but now I just get the constant “Google Play Services has stopped.” message. I wonder what caused this.
Amazon probably pushed out an update which broke the hack.
I was able to run and install google services via the instruction without rooting since last December, but this morning, I too, start to get the ‘ Google Play services has stopped’ message every few seconds, and Google Play is not functioning anymore. Likely something lamazon did to disable google services. Hope there is a solution soon.
i am using playstore in fire phone past 2 months, from today morning onwards constantly getting Google Play Services has stopped message
i reinstalled again its working again
And Vijay, did you reinstalled it the same way, just like the first time? Like in this tutorial?
Hey Vijay
Did you install the same way as earlier and the same version of play store?
Yes, i uninstalled, restarted and installed, it works, but after sometime, i did update the apps in google store, it stopped working.
[…] Amazon's year-old smartphone doesn't have many features which would justify its original high price tag, but at least its owners can content themselves with the knowledge that they could use a hack to install Google Play. […]
Same here, I think there was either a Amazon or google update that broke it
i’ve tried like 4 times, uninstalling and re installing this way, but each time it comes up saying ‘Google Play Services have stopped’ and when i click on Google Play it comes up as if i’ve swiped to the left for setting and says no connection.
Is there anything i can do?
Read this. The comment section is full of comments from people with the same issue.
Similar to everyone else. constant error msg. until removing the “services” piece.
The good news that the apps I installed when the play store was working are still working. Google voice, Google music, and a specialty app for my company are working, but I wasn’t able to get gmail or G+ to work. Hoping that someone can figure out a new “hack”. 😉
So I was doing some digging and it seems like Google buried google play services in favor of something new called Google play games…essentially it’s Xbox live for your phone’s and tablets…so until someone fingers out a new work around were all stuck
in the mean time I use aptoide and 1mobile
[…] I own one, and some months ago—I normally go with other phones, because of the plans I have in place—it was not just able to run Amazon apps. It could also run Moon+ Reader Pro and other favorites from the Google Play Store after I made a certain tweak. […]
[…] an excess of cameras, and a 4.7" screen, the Fire Phone has almost everything you could want (even Google Play). But it's still tied to Amazon and runs a proprietary version of Android. For those of us who […]