Earlier in February, Amazon announced that it was getting ready to shut down its Android app store later in the year. Well, that time is almost here now, and if you haven’t already, you should really consider spending your balance of the Amazon Coins virtual currency to purchase games, apps, and in-app items.
“We’ve decided to discontinue the Amazon Appstore on Android to focus our efforts on the Appstore experience on our own devices, as that’s where the overwhelming majority of our customers currently engage with it,” said Amazon at the time. Developers have since been unable to submit new apps to the Amazon Appstore for Android, though they’ve been able to continue pushing out updates. That, however, will change next week.
As of Wednesday, August 20th, Amazon will officially discontinue its Appstore for Android devices. The app store will remain available on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices. The move follows the discontinuation of the Appstore on Windows.
According to the e-commerce giant, once no longer supported, apps downloaded via the Amazon Appstore “will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices.” You should take that as said apps not working at all, or becoming highly unstable without continued support. Take note of apps that you use regularly and find them on alternative (read: primary) app stores like the Google Play Store.
Unspent Amazon Coins to be refunded
Elsewhere, your Amazon Coins, if still in your account after the August 20th deadline, will reportedly be refunded. The online shopping giant previously said that “additional details concerning refunds will be shared at a later date,” and as of today, we still haven’t heard those details.
We’ve reached out to Amazon for more details. We’ll update this article if and when we hear back.
