Go Launcher

The Kindle Fire’s home screen is not the entirety of the system, despite Amazon working hard to make everything feel like an extension of that. In reality, it’s just a launcher app like on any other Android device. To Amazon’s credit, the parts of the operating system that allow users to change out default apps is still intact. That means custom home screens can be used to get a more tablet-like experience quite easily. This launcher creates a traditional Android home screen with icons, multiple scrollable panels, and even widgets. Go Launcher is smart enough to place its dock above the on-screen buttons, which still work as expected in this alternate environment. It also detects Amazon modules like Kindle, Appstore, and Audible as apps that you can access through the app drawer. Any app installed from any source that is designed to have widgets on an Android device will have its widgets accessible in Go Launcher on the Fire. The Kindle Fire will ask each time the home button is pressed if the user wants to go to the Kindle launcher, or Go Launcher. The check box on the pop-up remembers your choice, but that can be changed in the settings anytime the stock UI is desired.

Screen Filter

The Kindle Fire is still a reading device, but reading on an LCD is always going to be a less than ideal experience. A backlit screen tends to be harder on the eyes as it pumps out all those photons. A major issue with the Fire is that even at the minimum brightness setting, it is retina-burning bright in a dark room. A simple free app called Screen Filter can be had on the official Android Market, and sideloading it will fix the brightness issue once and for all. Just open Screen Filter and everything gets nice and dark. To get to the user interface of the app, check the notification area for the link. Screen Filter has a slider for users to choose how dark to make the screen. Once the right level has been found, tapping the icon to toggle it on and off is easy enough. Screen Filter can push the screen all the way down to zero backlight, which is obviously not usable, but that just shows how powerful the tool is. This is truly indispensable for night-time reading.

MoboPlayer

The built-in Movies feature on the Fire is limited to hardware decoding of a very limited range of video codecs. This is actually common for most Android devices, and has created a market for video players capable of software decoding. The Amazon Appstore has a few video players apps, but surprisingly, they don’t work very well on the Fire. A little trial and error, and we found a video player that can play almost anything. MoboPlayer is a favorite app from the Android Market. The interface is slick and easy to use. This app also recognizes the on-screen Fire buttons and moves its controls just above that. MoboPlayer uses gestures to control several functions, and users may have to manually raise the volume by swiping up on the right side of the screen. There’s some software confusion as the Fire has no physical volume toggle.

The Kindle Fire isn’t perfect, but there is still enough Android in it to allow this kind of customization. Adding Go Launcher makes it instantly feel somewhat like a real tablet. A couple of extras like Screen Filter and MoboPlayer can smooth over some of the rough spots too. All this costs absolutely nothing, all you need is access to the APK files.

Related: http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard