The Amazon App Store Sucks

Over the past few years, Google Play and Apple App Store have remained the two most popular marketplaces for downloading apps. However, that’s not to say they are the only option. In fact, there are a number of other popular application stores. One of the more popular ones is the Amazon App Store. This app market place comes pre-installed as a default app on all Amazon fire devices and is fairly popular on some other devices as well.

However, as a matter of personal opinion and the consensus from many users, the Amazon App Store Sucks! That’s not to say it is outrightly terrible or would not work. However, examining it in the light of the more popular app stores, the Amazon app store is limited in several respects.

My first problem with this store is the more obvious one. If you compare the number of apps available on Amazon to what we have on the Playstore, it’s easy to see why the app isn’t a really interesting alternative. While Google play boasts of up to 3 million applications, the Amazon Appstore has only about 600,000. Even if the Amazon Playstore offers the best in terms of user experience or everything else, the fact that you may not find everything you want on the store is a major limitation. Such an app is no good for you if you cannot find the content you need on it. Yes, you will find many popular apps on this platform. But Imagine searching for the YouTube app and many other Google Apps on the Amazon app store and nothing shows up. Tragic right?

Another problem is the fact that the installation process is not so straightforward. The Amazon app store only comes pre-installed on official Amazon hardware. For other devices, you will have to look for a way to circumvent the system by installing the Amazon underground app first. You will need to alter some of the settings on your device to allow it to install the underground app since it is from an unknown source. You will only have access to Amazon Store after installing this underground app and signing in. Why go through all that trouble just for a platform that offers no app that I can’t find on the conventional app stores.

Of course, Amazon probably makes up for some of these shortcomings with the offering of free stuff. The App Store gives users over $20,000 worth of games and apps for free. You may even be able to some paid apps for free occasionally on the app.

If you consider this fact, we could say the Amazon App Store isn’t utterly terrible. But the limitations (few app options and how problematic the installation process) makes using a platform like this not so enjoyable. Asides from the free stuff, you won’t find much here that you cannot easily find elsewhere which sucks if you think about it.