Amazon Launches AWS Device Farm, Lets Developers Test Android And Fire OS Apps On Real Devices
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon spent mid-2015 wiring developer plumbing between Android and its forked Fire OS: it shipped an ad platform that targets both Android and Fire users in May, released the Fire OS 5 developer preview built on Android Lollipop in June, and now adds AWS Device Farm so developers can run those dual-target apps on real hardware they don't own.
The timing matters because testing was the last friction point in that pipeline — the same day, Amazon also launched the Fling toolkit for sending media from mobile apps to Fire TV. Within months, AWS Mobile Hub extended the same play to back-end processes.
First-order effects
- Android developers gain cloud access to real devices for testing Android and Fire OS builds, removing the need to buy or maintain physical handsets for each screen size and OS version.
- Amazon directly lowers the cost of shipping to its own Appstore: a Fire OS app validated on Lollipop-based previews can be certified against actual Fire hardware before release.
Second-order effects
- Rivals in cloud device testing face an incumbent bundler — AWS can fold Device Farm into existing developer accounts and billing, pressuring standalone services on price rather than features.
- Better-tested Fire apps improve Appstore catalog quality, which feeds back into Amazon's cross-platform ad targeting of Android and Fire users from May.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, AWS becomes a full mobile development lifecycle vendor — testing now, back-end services via Mobile Hub, connected-device integration via IoT — locking developers into one cloud before they write code.
- Sustained investment in Android-compatible tooling is what keeps Amazon's Fire fork economically viable: the cheaper it is to target both OSes, the less reason developers have to drop Fire support.
The trend: Cloud providers are absorbing the entire mobile app development lifecycle into their platforms, with Amazon using free-flowing tooling to keep its Android-compatible Fire ecosystem stocked with apps.