I won a Kindle Fire in a drawing in December. I lurve it far more than I thought I ever would. (Oh wait I had it before I went to CA so I must have won it in November). I love the ease of use. I love the ease of downloading crap. I love the portability. I love that I can find free wifi almost everywhere so I don't have to have a data plan. (It isn't fancy enough to require a data plan, it has to connect to the world on wifi only.)
So the first thing I did when opening the Kindle Fire - Apps. Now whatever Apps that I talk about are ones I've purchased of my own volition and not because I have received any renumeration for anything I may say or not say about their awesomeness or lack of awesomeness. Additionally, the fiyah uses Android platform (is that the right word) and you mostly have to get the Apps from the Kindle Store so I may have a bum app (which I do) which may actually be perfectly normal in the real App store but since I'm limited to the ones from the fiyah store I'm stuck.
First apps I downloaded were the mail, twitter and facebook app. Yahoo mail and twitter work just fine and mostly how you'd expect. They work just like the ones on your phone. The facebook app is a waste of time. It has some weird bug that limits what you can see to only the top 6 or 7 items in the newsfeed. Since I have zero reception (for anything cell phones included) in my office, I can't check facebook 400 times a day and can only do so at lunch in the breakroom or at the end of the day. Thus, when I use their facebook app I can see 6 events and that's it. Totes frustrating. I just use the web version of the facebook.
The next thing I downloaded were a bunch of games I'd heard of but never got to play... Oh and those group games that everyone likes. Sadly, for me, many of those have already been abandoned by all my friends who used to play them. :) BUT I did pull down Hanging, Words and Scramble with Friends. I like all of them. I also grabbed Draw Something which I play with my mother of all people. Neither of us has very good artistic skills. But all those apps work just fine and the way you'd expect them to. No surprises there.
I also downloaded (and here's how you know I'm behind the curve) Angry Birds. That game IS addicting. I've completed almost the whole thing, but several times I've had to consult YouTube for assistance. (Now there's an app the fiyah doesn't have - a good YouTube app, perhaps because it doesn't have a camera and recording capability?)
Netflix and Hulu Plus are both available. I'm currently a member of Netflix (although maybe not for long) and not a member of Hulu Plus (although maybe not for long) so we'll see. The netflix app works just fine and is easy to use.
I do love the pinterest app. I'm not sure why but I like the interface and how easy it is to see all the pins. I don't like that it seems like (and I could be wrong) that in the attempt to save space on the screen (or something), when I'm repinning I can't see ALL the boards I can pin on so that can get frustrating for me.
While I was visiting M's kiddos in CA (oh that sounds like I go there just to see the kiddos... ) While I was visiting M & the fam in CA, I downloaded several kiddo apps. What bugs me about kid apps (which is what I'm sure kids love about kid apps) is the need to add on to the app. I downloaded some free coloring apps and those were fine, but any of the dress up apps you had to buy up for more stuff. I have smartly turned off in-app purchasing so I did not get a $600 bill from Amazon for my in-app purchasing. Oh unlike the iphones (and my droid phone) Amazon provides me a receipt for any app I purchase. (Even those that are free) Since those are automatically sent to my email I would see it much quicker if I had kiddos doing in-app purchasing that I was unaware of.
The app I just recently downloaded (and the actual reason for my app posting) is called Erase Debt. I put in my debt situation and give it some variables such as how much extra I can put toward debt and it calculates for me my debt payback schedules and how long it would take and how much I'm paying over the purchase. I'm hoping this app helps keep me on track to become debt free in the future. I like that I can adjust how much I want to put towards debt repayment per month and it will readjust the repayment schedules. I also like that it isn't tied to anything so there's no sharing of data between that app and my card companies or anything.
And let's not forget the Fiyah's original use - books. All my already purchased books hang out in 'the cloud' and I can pull them down or remove them from the device anytime I am hooked up to wifi. (Well I can delete them anytime but I can only pull them down when I'm connected to wifi). I like that the fiyah is back lit so I can read in the dark. It is probably bad for my eyes or something but I like reading in the dark. My local library has books for me to check out and since I can access the internet from the fiyah I can do it all on the fiyah and not have to go back and forth from computer to kindle. If I decide to join Amazon Prime (in consideration), I can also check out books from Amazon Prime's lending library so that's nifty too.
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