Player engagement is the key to success for most mobile games, and Amazon GameCircle is designed to help developers increase engagement through player Achievements, Leaderboards, and game data synchronization. We recently added two new features: (1) expanded player profiles with cross-game experience points, called XP, which allow players to track and share their total play time and (2) GameCircle-created achievements across multiple games, called Badges, which enhance players’ overall GameCircle Profile.  Players will enjoy these features as they offer new reasons to revisit favorites as well as incentives to try new games.

Your GameCircle-enabled game now helps players build their public reputation with their friends and the GameCircle community, an advantage over games without GameCircle enabled. The new GameCircle Badges help new players discover your game and re-engage existing customers as they return to satisfy the requirements associated with your game.

Longer Play Time with Experience Points

If your mobile game integrates GameCircle, then your players will automatically earn Experience Points (XP) for the time they spend playing your game; no changes are required to your code. In addition, each achievement in your game now carries an XP reward from 0 to 100 that you specify, up to a total of 1,500 XP for the entire game. We recommend allocating no more than 1,000 XP when launching a new title, leaving at least 500 XP for future expansion in case you add more achievements later. You can change XP allocation at any time for draft achievements, but once an achievement is published, its corresponding XP value is fixed for good.

By earning experience points through playing your games, a player increases their GameCircle Level compared to their peers. GameCircle Level increases steadily as players earn XP for spending time and unlocking achievements in GameCircle-enabled games. For current players with an existing GameCircle account, Amazon has already given them XP, and the appropriate GameCircle Level, based on the achievements they unlocked in the past. New players joining after today will begin at Level 1.

Integrating GameCircle into your mobile game benefits your players, who automatically receive more XP the longer they play. If you take advantage of the GameCircle Achievements service, your game becomes eligible for cross-game badges which offer even more opportunity for players to advance.

Badges Mean More Discoverability

In addition to Experience Points, GameCircle also includes new support for special Badges. Badges are cross-game achievements awarded by GameCircle. These are earned by completing challenges associated with unlocking specific achievements in select games of similar type or in a particular game genre. Up to three badges can be displayed on the player’s profile so he or she can show off favorites earned so far.

For example, players can earn the Zombie Killer badge for unlocking certain achievements in three zombie-related games. Similarly, the Burning Rubber badge is awarded for unlocking specific objectives in two driving games. At launch, there are close to forty special badges available.

Zombie Killer         Burning Rubber

For players who don’t know your app (but have played similar titles), genre-spanning Badges or Badges connecting similar achievements in other games may serve as an introduction to your product. Existing customers may rediscover your game as they explore Badges in game categories that intere them.

GameCircle: Designed to Increase Engagement

GameCircle has always offered Achievements, Leaderboards, and game data synchronization through Whispersync for Games. With these updates to the player profiles—including Achievement XP, GameCircle Level, and Badges—players can easily track and compare their progress across all GameCircle-enabled games.

GameCircle is designed to increase player engagement, improve retention, and enhance the customer experience when playing mobile games on iOS, Android, or Fire OS. For more information about player profiles mobile development, see our online documentation:

• GameCircle Achievements, Leaderboards, and Whispersync for Games
• Cross-Platform Solutions for Android, iOS, HTML5, and More
• Mobile Game Development with Amazon

-peter (@peterdotgames)

Go Live when You Want To

Amazon has recently added the ability to specify the date and time you would like your app to go live on the Amazon Appstore. This gives you the ability to coordinate your app release on Amazon with releases on other stores and in conjunction with any press or social media launch events you may wish to plan.

How Does It Work?

You start by completing the new app submission or the app update submission as you normally would, but make sure that you enter the date and time you want your app to go live in the Availability & Pricing section (see image below). Times are shown in Pacific Standard Time.

Then you simply submit your app as usual.

What Happens Next?

Submitted

When you first click the ‘Submit’ button, your app will display the status “Submitted” for up to 60 minutes until we kick off testing for your app.

Under Review

Typically, within 60 minutes of submission, your app will enter testing regardless of the launch date you have chosen. This lets us notify you of any issues prior to your launch event. While your app is being tested, your app status will show as “Under Review”.

Approved

If your app passes testing, your app will be staged on our servers, waiting for the date and time you specified. During this waiting time, your app will show an “Approved” status in the Developer Portal.

Live

At the time of your launch, we complete the publishing process to make your app available in the Amazon Appstore. We work hard to complete the testing process as quickly as possible, and our goal is to publish at least 90% of apps within 60 minutes of the time specified. Once publishing is complete, your app will have the “Live” status in the developer portal.

You can edit the launch date and time any time prior to your app going “Live” in the Appstore.

What You Can Do Now

• Specify a date and time for new launches and updates in the Amazon Developer Portal
• Join the conversation in our LinkedIn group, Amazon App Developer

Mike Hines

@MikeFHines

Today, Amazon announced Amazon Fire TV, a new device that makes it easy for users to stream movies, TV shows, and music as well as download apps and play games right on the HDTVs they already own. For developers, Fire TV can help you increase your customer base by putting your app in the living room, in front of people who enjoy entertainment and may not have seen your apps before. To promote rich user experiences, Fire TV enables full-featured game controllers, Dolby Digital Plus Certified surround sound and more. Android developers will find that developing for Fire TV is familiar, and optimizing their apps for the new controllers and TV display will not require learning a new language or new frameworks. Click here to learn more about how to setup your Fire TV developer environment.

Built with High Performance Gaming in Mind

A room with a large screen TV and surround sound audio is a great environment for gaming, and Fire TV has the performance to deliver a great gaming experience. From its inception, Fire TV has been designed around optimizing HDTV displays and powering demanding applications. It uses a Qualcomm Quad Core Snapdragon Krait 300 processor with Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM to support high performance game experiences. (See all the tech specs here).

Fire TV also supports a variety of controllers to let you design the best experience for your users. Fire TV supports a d-pad remote control, along with multi-function game controllers. Multi-function game controllers enable much more engaging gameplay for the TV than a typical d-pad remote can.

Second Screen via DIAL

Second Screen is a technology that allows your Amazon Fire TV app to interact with other mobile devices using DIAL, an open standard that enables customers to discover and open apps on their television right from their tablet or phone. For example, a user can sit on their couch and use their Kindle Fire HDX to control an app running on their TV screen.

It’s Time to Start Thinking About the 10-foot Experience

Running apps on a television opens up unique experiences for customers. Users are (on average) 10 feet away from the screen with different viewing habits and expectations. For example, users don’t need to stop what they are doing to view your app. Users can see the TV screen while they are making breakfast, unlike when they’re on phones or tablets. It is also easy for multiple people to have a good view of the TV at the same time, something which can be hard on PCs or mobile devices. There are several ways to use these large-screen characteristics to your advantage. One idea is to use the TV display productively during times it would otherwise be turned off. For example, you could display traffic and weather information on the TV or even show a family calendar or bulletin board app on the TV. Another idea is to use the screen size to support multi-player games in which the users can play concurrently, each able to see the screen without difficulty, each with their own game controller.

Controllers

There are two kinds of controllers available for the Amazon Fire TV. They are:

• Amazon Fire TV Remote- Included with your Fire TV and supports a variety of apps and games.
• Game Controllers- Bluetooth wireless game controllers, like the Amazon Fire game controller, provide all the controls you need for a richer gaming experience. (Learn more about the Amazon Fire game controller).

The Fire TV remote and game controllers trigger logical default events, so the game controller will work predictably in standard Android UI widgets. For example, the Menu button on the controller will pass through to Android and invoke the Android context menu (OptionsMenu), and the Back button on the controller will be ingested like the back button in the Android UI. Events for the remote and game controller can be customized, and trigger special events you can detect.

Fire TV remote (shown below) comes with Amazon Fire TV. The remote supports the remote input events shown here. The D-pad on the remote fires keycode events (like KEYCODE_DPAD_UP) and navigates through standard Android controls, moving UI focus up, down, left and right. In many cases, navigation around your UI will work right out of the box and won’t require any special event handling. Since the remote is the default controller that ships with Amazon Fire TV, you should test to see that your app is functional with Amazon Fire TV remote, even if you have optimized for a game controller.

The Game Controller - Multiplayer support comes to your TV

The Amazon Fire game controller offers the same level of default support for standard Android navigation controls as the remote does, but optimizing your game for the game controller offers a lot of additional options; just take a look at the game controller controls in the picture below. Up to 7 game controllers can connect via Bluetooth to an Amazon Fire TV at any one time and each controller can be associated with a player ID, so multi-player support is a real option for you.

Integrated with Amazon Payment Services

When a customer buys a Fire TV and registers with their Amazon Account, they are already set up with their verified Amazon Payment profile. Your user is ready to purchase apps or in-app items with no further effort. Amazon Fire TV supports the Amazon In-App-Purchasing API so you can offer consumable items, permanently entitled items, and even subscriptions for sale in your app.

To help you tune your gameplay and monetization implementation, Amazon offers A|B Testing and Analytics tools that can help you hone your app for maximum user retention and optimized monetization. And all of these tools work on Fire OS devices and Android devices, and most will work on iOS devices as well.

Optimizing Your App for a TV Screen

To make your app look sharp on a TV, you’ll want to make sure you have a layout for tvdpi and xhdpi to support the resolution on living room TV screens. Unlike most Android devices, Amazon Fire TV will render your app on 720p or 1080p screens of any size, so you should plan for a range of screen sizes. It is also important to remember that your user will typically be 10 feet away from the screen, and may appreciate larger controls and dialog boxes. Common tweaks to make apps look better on TV include:

• Increasing the sizes of fonts and buttons
• More clearly identifying the “selected” item
• Adding additional padding between all elements on the page
• Consider using more muted colors. Bright colors tend to over-saturate on TV screens and may appear to bleed into adjacent pixels
• Keep away from the edges as some TV’s may clip the edge of the screen

Three Steps to Get Your Android App on Amazon Fire TV

Because you can use the Android code you’ve already written, getting started is easy.

Here are three steps you take to make your game or app available on Fire TV:

1. Make sure your app looks good on an HDTV and is optimized for the living room setting, where the user is typically 10 feet away from the screen
2. Check to see if the Amazon controller defaults work with you app, or add some code so that it does work with the Amazon Fire TV remote and game controllers
3. Submit (or re-submit) your app in the Developer Portal

Once submitted and approved, depending on your app’s compatibility, a user may be able to purchase your app on Amazon Fire TV, Kindle Fire, the Amazon Appstore website, or on the Amazon Appstore of other compatible devices. This means that if your app is available for Kindle Fire devices, Android phones, and Amazon Fire TV, your user will be able to purchase your app once on any of those devices and use it across any of the other compatible devices. Not only does this expose your app to new users, it also makes your app available on more screens so it can be in front of your existing customers more often.

Get 500,000 Amazon Coins through Appstore Developer Select

When you launch your app on Fire TV, you will be considered for the Appstore Developer Select program. As part of the Appstore Developer Select program, developers who support Fire TV can receive 500,000 Amazon Coins and create campaigns where customers earn those Coins when they purchase apps and games. This is in addition to the regular program benefits that include 500,000 mobile ad impressions, enhanced merchandising, AWS credits, and additional Amazon Coins incentives. See this blog post for more details on Appstore Developer Select.

Developer Resources

While you can develop Android apps for Amazon Fire TV without an SDK, Amazon does provide an SDK you can download that includes sample code, Javadocs, two .jar files for controller support and messaging, and guidelines for fine-tuning formatting for HDTVs.

Amazon Fire TV resources

• Create a developer account on the Amazon Appstore
• Amazon Fire TV developer documentation
• Amazon Fire TV game controller

Amazon Appstore resources

• Amazon Appstore Developer Blog
• Amazon Developer Support Forum
• Amazon Appstore Cross-Platform APIs

Get Your App Ready Now

• Order an Amazon Fire TV
• Download the Amazon Fire TV SDK
• Review the Getting Started page

PreApps: Improving Monetization through User Feedback

When it comes to monetizing your apps who couldn’t use just a little help? Amazon is consistently looking for solutions to help you simplify the process of attracting new users, increase discoverability, improve IAP performance and grow revenue in your apps and games. While we have built many solutions on our own we know there are a number of solutions outside Amazon that can help increase app revenue and get your apps discovered.

PreApps is one of those solutions, and we are working with PreApps to provide Amazon Appstore developers with discounted offers and services. PreApps connects developers and app enthusiasts, before the launch of an app, to help developers improve app quality and hopefully monetization as a result. The concept is pretty simple – users get access to your apps to help identify bugs and things like UI enhancements and if they like your app, they can help promote it through their social network. More than one-thousand apps have used the service, and we’d like to hear how it works for you..

Free Access to PreApps User Feedback Program

Starting today Developers with a registered Amazon Account can get free access to the PreApps User Feedback program which includes the ability to post your free app, receive customer feedback, access to beta testers, see the number of users asking to be notified when your app goes live and access to PreApps App Analytics.  We’ll be sending a code to all registered developers so keep an eye out for it in your inbox and let us know what you think.

To learn more about PreApps visit their website or you can read what TechCrunch had to say about them here.

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)

Don’t send a gift, we’ll give one to you

Note: Effective 08-26-2015 Free App of the Day (FAD) has been replaced with Amazon Underground.

Yes, on our birthday this year, we’d like to offer you some gifts!  Before we get to the numbers, let’s take the wrapping off our present to you. Starting on March 16^th we kicked off our birthday week with discounts on apps and in-app items along with some great Free App of the Day specials (FAD). Starting today and running through Saturday, we’ll offer a “Appstore Hits” FAD bundle, which is valued at over $50 and includes titles like Monopoly, POLARIS Office, Dr. Panda Airport, Swype Keyboard and more.  You can find this FAD bundle at www.amazon.com/FADhits.

We’re also continuing the deals and discounts we kicked off our birthday week with, where you’ll continue to find deals of up to 60% off on select apps plus amazing promotions on in-app items for titles including Wheel of Fortune from Sony Pictures, Terraria from 505 Games and Warner Bros.’ Batman: Arkham City Lockdown. As an added bonus, for a limited time, customers who buy select in-app items within great games like Asphalt 8, Animal Voyage, Kingdoms of Camelot, The Hobbit, Sonic Dash, World at Arms and Despicable Me: Minion Rush can earn up to 50% back on the purchase price in the form of Amazon Coins. 

Great deals will continue to run through March 29^th, so check back to our store for the latest. We hope you enjoy these savings. Now on to the numbers.

Amazon Appstore by the numbers

The Amazon Appstore launched on March 22, 2011 with 4,084 apps available for users of Android devices. Since that day, the Kindle Fire line of devices has launched with the Amazon Appstore, and an increasing number of mobile carriers around the world are selling Android phones with the Amazon Appstore pre-installed.

We’re happy that we’ve been able to meet the needs of so many customers over that time. We thought you might like to see some of the numbers from the Amazon Appstore over the years:

Downloads

On our Birthdays, these were the most downloaded apps:

• On our initial launch in 2011 - Angry Birds Rio (Ad-Free)
• 1st birthday, 2012 - Backyard Zombies
• 2nd birthday, 2013 - The Croods Movie Storybook

Amazon Appstore Numbers

Number of apps: Over 180,000 in the US

Number of countries: 198

Hours required for a developer to submit an app: Less than 1

Delivering value to developers and customers

Since we started three years ago, both customers and developers have seen value from programs like Free App of the Day, Amazon Coins and Appstore Developer Select. We’ve also expanded our developer services significantly and have launched services like Mobile Associates, which lets developers earn commissions on physical goods sold on Amazon.com, and A/B Testing which helps developers tweak and tune their apps in real-time. These services and others have helped developers earn more money, and we’re certainly not finished yet. Look for more innovative cross-platform programs and services in the years to come. As always at Amazon, it’s still day 1 in this business, and we’re just getting started.

What you can do

• Keep an eye on the Free App of the Day here.
• You can get started on the Amazon Appstore in less time than you think.  You can create a free Appstore developer account in less than 30 minutes here.
• You can submit one of your existing apps in less than an hour (watch this video to learn how).

Amazon returns to GDC in 2014, offering technical and business-related sessions on building and monetizing apps, fast-track app publication into the Amazon Appstore, and partner showcases.

Learn about cross platform services: from AWS to Analytics

It’s no secret that the most profitable games are the ones that keep their players engaged—usually through a combination of great content and the best use of technology.  On Tuesday, March 18, Amazon is sponsoring a day of eight sessions at GDC, on topics like game architecture, design, technology, and monetization strategies.  You will gain insights whether building a backend, expanding to additional platforms, scaling to handle more players, or exploring new revenue streams. Anyone with an Expo pass can attend, so plan to join us today!

Amazon Appstore Blast: Get your app published in as fast as two hours

In addition, Android developers who have Expo passes will be able to submit an app to the Amazon Appstore for Android and have it reviewed for potential publication in as fast as two hours. Bring your APK file to the Amazon Appstore Blast, side load it for testing and submit the app for expedited publishing.  Amazon evangelists and testers will be on hand to help check compatibility and answer any questions. (Usually no changes are necessary—75% of apps we’ve tested just work.) Come to meeting room 2546 in the North Hall to publish your app and reach millions of new customers.

Hear from successful Amazon partners

Amazon partners will also be present at GDC to show off exciting new projects and advanced features related to Amazon devices and services. Dolby Laboratories will showcase the Dolby Audio API, which helps developers create truly immersive game experiences with enhanced Dolby sound.  Marmalade, the cross-platform SDK and game development ecosystem, will highlight their new platform support for Amazon GameCircle on booth 2510, which makes it fast and easy to incorporate Achievements, Leaderboards and Whispersync for Games into your Marmalade-based game.  In addition, Amazon staff will be on hand in the Marmalade booth to answer questions about Amazon’s developer services.  Amazon’s framework partner GameSalad will also be attending GDC.  Creator of a rapid development platform, GameSalad recently debuted drag-and-drop integration with Amazon GameCircle and our In-App Purchasing API.

Session schedule

10:00 - 10:30 am Introduction
10:30 - 11:30 am AWS Architecture
11:45 - 12:45 pm Game Analytics
12:45 - 1:45 pm Engaging Your Audience with Mobile Push Notifications (w/lunch)
1:45 - 2:30 pm Amazon AppStream - New Gaming Experiences Using the Clouds for Game Streaming
2:30 - 3:30 pm What's Working in In-App Monetization
3:30 - 4:30 pm A/B Testing with Air Patriots
4:45 - 5:45 Large Scale HTML5 Games on Desktop, Mobile & Tablets with KANO/APPS

Register now to attend the Amazon Developer Day at GDC 2014 and come meet the Amazon team.

Today, we’re extending Amazon Coins to all Android devices with the Amazon Appstore installed.  Amazon Coins is a way for Amazon Appstore customers to buy and enjoy Android apps, games, and in-app items for less. Customers can save up to 10% on apps and games by purchasing Amazon Coins, while developers continue to get their full 70% revenue share.

More Ways for More Customers to Buy Your Apps

Since the launch of Amazon Coins in the US, UK, and Germany in 2013, customers have already purchased hundreds of millions of Amazon Coins and are actively using them on Kindle Fire devices, representing real dollars to developers.

Now, users of the Amazon Appstore on Android will be able to use Amazon Coins to purchase apps, games, and a broad range of in-app items on any Android device running the Amazon Appstore in the US, UK, or Germany. If a customer is already a Kindle Fire user, he or she will automatically see their existing Coins balance on their other Android devices in addition to their Kindle devices.

How You Can Benefit from This News

We have already seen developers benefit from customers using their Amazon Coins to try out and explore new apps and games. Now that Coins are available to an even larger audience, you can take advantage of the opportunity by making sure your app is available on the largest number of devices.

Check Device Availability

Check your device availability to make sure your app is available to as many Coins-enabled customers as possible.  Checking is easy, and adding supported devices is not much harder. Follow these steps below to get started:

1.      In the Amazon Developer Portal, go to your app’s detail page.

Under the Binary File(s) tab, check the Device Support section for “All non-Amazon Android devices…” (see sample below).

2.      If your app has “All non-Amazon Android devices...” and the Kindle Fire devices listed, then you’re done!

If the entry is missing “All non-Amazon Android devices...” (as shown below), you can change that.

Change this by: a) Modifying your AndroidManifest.xml, b) Creating an ‘Upcoming Version’ in the dev portal, and then c) Submitting the .apk with the new manifest file. Here are the steps to do that:

a.       If you have verified that your .apk will run successfully on some (or most) other Android devices, make sure you reference supported devices in your AndroidManifest.xml file by using <compatible-screens /> or <supports-screens />  (please make sure to increment the version number of your app when you modify the manifest).

b.      Click Add Upcoming Version in the dev portal.

While in the new ‘Upcoming Version’ section, go to the Binary File(s) tab and check all the appropriate boxes.

c.       Upload the .apk with the new manifest.xml, make sure the other tabs are complete (and app version number is different), and re-submit your app.

3.      If your app is not available on Kinde Fire devices, you can use Amazon’s App Testing Service to get the info you need in about a minute. Just drag and drop your .apk into the tool to get your results! You can also check out common reasons for incompatibility, and check out the documentation on our dev portal.

Questions

If you have any questions about Amazon Coins or device availability, please check our dev portal, or contact one of our developer support professionals.

We recently posted an update to the Appstore SDK here.

This update introduces two material changes. These are:

• Unity3D plugin: Using a namespaced version MiniJSON to avoid name conflicts.
• AdobeAir Plugin: Fixed bug in actionscript when parsing a Date object as type ‘int’ would return an incorrect time.

Please download the latest SDK to get the latest UNITY and Adobe plug-ins and remove the old plug-ins.

If you develop apps or games with Unity, you may already be using Amazon’s GameCircle plug-in for Unity to integrate cross-platform leaderboards, achievements, and game data synchronization.  The plug-in works on iOS, Android, and Fire OS, connecting your app to Amazon’s GameCircle service.  Its leaderboards and achievements encourage friendly competition and replay, while its Whispersync for Games component backs up game data to the cloud, improving the customer experience.  With GameCircle, gamers won’t lose their progress if they reset their device or buy a new one.

If you haven’t used the GameCircle plug-in yet, you can now download it from the Scripting/Integration section of the Unity Asset Store.  Accessible directly from within the Unity development environment, the Unity Asset Store makes it fast and convenient to add editor or game functionality through third-party extensions like the GameCircle plug-in.

This official GameCircle plug-in is compatible with iOS and Android phones and tablets, as well as Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, and Kindle Fire HDX devices.  Add the plug-in to your project to access GameCircle leaderboards, achievements, and Whispersync for Games.

In addition, the GameCircle plug-in also works with the Unity Social API, which provides a unified interface to social back-ends such as Game Center and Xbox Live.  Set the active social platform to GameCircle and calls to the Unity Social API will pass through to the GameCircle service in the same way:

#if UNITY_IOS || UNITY_ANDROID
Social.Active = GameCircleSocial.Instance;    
#endif

Since Unity’s Social API is designed to be a generic interface that works across many services, it doesn’t support every feature of every back-end.  GameCircle leaderboards and achievements work seamlessly, for example, but Unity’s Social API provides no hooks for game data synchronization.  To use some advanced features of GameCircle, like Whispersync for Games, simply call the API through the normal GameCircle interface.  It’s easy to use the two APIs side-by-side, and the plug-in includes a sample scene to help you get GameCircle and Unity’s Social API up and running together.

Check out the official GameCircle plug-in in the Unity Asset Store.  It’s easier than ever to get started integrating GameCircle’s leaderboards, achievements, and Whispersync for Games in your Unity-based game for most mobile devices.  You can also visit our developer portal for more detailed information about using GameCircle and Unity together, as well as links to help you call other Amazon services from your Unity projects.

Today, we released the new developer portal that improves the look and feel of the site and helps you save time when planning, building, and submitting applications to the Amazon Appstore. 

The portal refresh is designed to make it easy for you to:

1. Get Started: If you have an Android app, you can simply drop your APK in our updated testing widget to get Appstore compatibility test results in just seconds. Once your app is ready, you can create a free developer account and submit it using the Developer Console.

2. Access the Latest Amazon APIs: Download the free Amazon Mobile App SDK for access to APIs and services that can enhance your apps and games, help you monetize them, and engage your audience across Android and iOS platforms.

3. Find the Content that Matters: The new site includes a wide variety of support resources to help you through the development process including documentation, development tools, marketing tips, promotional tools, videos, case studies, blog posts and one of my favorites, a schedule of upcoming training events.

Top Enhancements

There are many improvements in the new portal, and here are a few stand-outs:

    1. Streamlined App Submission

One thing that you’ll notice right away is how easy it is to check an existing Android .apk for compatibility with the Amazon Appstore. Just drag your .apk to the updated testing widget on the Home page and get results in seconds. If your app is ready to go (as most are), you can start the app submission process directly from the results page.

    2. Site-wide Search

The site-wide search tool in the top navigation bar can quickly get you to the page you are looking for. Just submit the term you are looking for and it will search the site for results.

    3. Complete list of APIs (with cross-platform compatibility notation)

There is now a page where you can find all of the Amazon Appstore APIs, and see their compatible platforms. In the case of the Analytics API for example, you can see that it is compatible with apps sold on iOS, the Google Play Store, and the Amazon App Store.

Also, behind each pretty icon is a page full of documentation, sample code and plug-in information for each service. (I spend a lot of time on these pages when I code.)

    4. Dedicated page for Game Developers

We introduced a page dedicated to the tools and services that Game developers will find most helpful, including game engine plug-ins and cross-platform APIs that can help you maximize revenue from In App Purchasing. (you can still use these even if you’re not a game dev.)

    5. Dedicated pages for HTML5 and iOS developers

Speaking of cross-platform, If you’re not an Android developer we made some changes to become more relevant to you, such as giving HTML5/web app developers their own resources page as well as building a page specifically for iOS developers who may want to take advantage of some of our Analytics tools, A|B Testing tools, or game services.  

    6. Resources for PC and Mac game developers

Even if you don’t program for mobile devices, we still have some great promotion programs.  These are detailed on the Mac and PC page to help you submit your game to Amazon and get noticed in our Digital Games and Software store, Indie Games store and Free-to-Play Store.

    7. Community resources and a calendar of events

We created a Community space, which provides you with access to our Developer Blog and Forums, and lists upcoming events and webinars, and lets you catch up on the latest tech news gathered from periodicals and blogs around the world. Check out the list of events and webinars here.

    8. A Resources section (including how-to videos)

This section contains links to development tools, marketing tips, and promotional programs. Also in this section are and learning resources, which include two of my favorite resources in the site: First is the one-stop-shop for all of the how-to videos, webinar videos, and case-study videos we’ve produced. The second is the Documentation page, which contains easy links to API documentation, Kindle Fire info, dev environment setup help, app submission tips, and even marketing tips.  

What hasn’t changed?

The Developer Console (the interface you use to work on app submission forms) has not changed its functionality; it has just been re-skinned. So you can add A|B Experiments, enter new IAP items and other dev console tasks just like you always have.

Take a look at our new developer portal as you build and distribute your apps with Amazon.

The Amazon Appstore for Android is spreading a little holiday cheer this week, offering a $5 credit to anyone who downloads the latest version of the Amazon Appstore and uses it to buy a mobile app or game from Christmas Eve through Saturday. The credit is good for the future purchase of any apps, games, or in-app items in the Amazon Appstore.

With millions opening brand new phones and tablets this season, there’s never been a better time to publish your mobile app or game on Amazon. The Amazon Appstore runs on all Android devices, and now customers will have an additional $5 to spend there on the great mobile content they love. Submit your app today to make sure it’s available for purchase when customers want to redeem their credit.

Starting today all Web App submissions to the Amazon Appstore now support Amazon Device Targeting.   While it is possible to detect and optimize your mobile websites server side, you may decide you only want to target your Web Apps to specific devices.  Web App submissions to the Amazon Appstore now allow the same device targeting capabilities that Android submissions do.  This means you can elect to make your Web Apps available for download on Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX, general Android (all non-Amazon) devices or any combination of these.  

By enabling device targeting within your individual Web Apps you can tailor your app experience to the specific screen size, density, and capabilities of Kindle devices.  For example, you may decide to target only devices capable of the Amazon Webview (Kindle Fire 2^nd generation and up) giving your Web Apps native-like speeds on Kindle devices.

What has changed?

In the previous version of the developer portal you did not have the option of choosing the device on which devices your Web Apps would be available.  By default your Web Apps would run on all Kindle Fire devices as well as Android capable devices. 

As of today, a new Device Support section has been added that will allow you to target any or all of Web App capable devices you choose.

Enabling Device Targeting

To enable Device Targeting in your Web Apps simply navigate to the Apps and Services, My Apps section in the developer portal, click on the title of your Web App, and then select the App File(s) tab.

You can then select the individual devices you want to target.  By default we will enable all Web App capable devices so be sure to uncheck any devices you specifically do not want to support.  Once you click the Save button you will find a new list of all the devices you have selected to support.

That’s it!  By following these few steps you now have more control over which devices your Web Apps will run on, giving you the option to tailor your app experience to the capabilities of each device.

-Dave (@TheDaveDev)

We are working to redesign our developer portal to make it easier for you to get started, get the resources you need and distribute your app in the Amazon Appstore. Today, we’d like to invite you try out the re-designed version of the site.

If you’d like to try this test site and provide us feedback, follow the ‘Try our Beta site’ link at the top of the current site to check out the beta. Please provide us with feedback by filling this form or emailing us at new-site-support@amazon.com.

Since the launch of Amazon Coins in the US in May, customers have already spent hundreds of millions of Amazon Coins, representing real dollars to developers, who still received their 70% revenue share. Check out our August blog post to read more about some of the results from developers so far.

Today, we’re extending Amazon Coins to the UK and Germany as well. As a thank you to existing and new Kindle Fire owners in the UK and Germany, customers will get free Amazon Coins deposited directly into their accounts so they can experience how easy it is to shop with Coins. Customers will be able to use Amazon Coins to purchase apps, games, and a broad range of in-app items in the Amazon.co.uk Appstore, the Amazon.de App-Shop, and on Kindle Fire.

Amazon Coins are immediately available to customers who pre-ordered the new Kindle Fire HDX 7” and Kindle Fire HDX 8.9”. Both devices are now available in the UK and Germany. This is a great opportunity for you to take advantage of Amazon Coins and the perfect time to submit your apps for the holiday rush. In 2012, we saw a 50% increase in the number of app downloads during Thanksgiving week as compared to an average week. During ‘Digital Week’ 2012, the week after Christmas, customers purchased and downloaded 600% more apps than any other week during 2012.

We have already seen developers like Halfbrick, PepiPlay, and textPlus benefit from customers using their Amazon Coins to try out and explore new apps and games. For many Indie developers, Coins has accounted for the majority of their revenue since Coins launched in the US.

If your app is available for sale for Kindle Fire in the Amazon Appstore, there’s nothing else to do. So submit your apps today and take advantage of Amazon Coins. For more information on making your apps available on Kindle Fire devices, check out these links:

1.    Create an account on the Developer Portal
2.    Download the Amazon Mobile App SDK
3.    Review the Kindle Fire development resources

Just in time for the holidays, millions of customers can now purchase Android applications from the Australian Appstore and Brazilian Appstore using their own local currency. Available in nearly 200 countries since May, the Amazon Appstore now allows developers to price their apps in Australian dollars or Brazilian reais, in addition to the other currencies already supported. There’s even a new localization option for Brazilian Portuguese so you can make your app that much more relevant to customers in Brazil. And, the Australian Appstore is also accessible to Kiwis, so customers in New Zealand can download the best local and global apps, too.

Being able to offer your apps for sale in the local currency of Australia and Brazil means less friction for customers in two of the most important global app marketplaces. Brazil is the largest app marketplace in Latin America and is growing faster even than the US, according to a recent report by Distimo¹, which also ranks the Australian app marketplace #6 in the world in terms of revenue. Despite Australia’s considerably smaller installed base, only the US, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and China surpass it for app purchases.

In addition, you can publish any Android app on the Amazon Appstore, which includes those running on Kindle Fire OS. In fact, more than 75% of the Android tablet apps we’ve tested just work on Kindle Fire without additional development. Publish your Android app on Amazon and it automatically becomes eligible to be featured on our web storefront and to be included in search results and recommendations shown on product detail pages. Once your app or game is available in our store, you can also promote its availability by linking to it directly.

So, don’t miss this opportunity to monetize your apps and games in time for the holiday rush. In 2012, we saw a 50% increase in the number of app downloads during Thanksgiving week as compared to an average week. During ‘Digital Week’ in 2012 (the week after Christmas), customers purchased and downloaded 600% more apps than an average week during the year. Submit your Android app to our store today and let us help you increase your international exposure in time for the holidays.