Microsoft releases Hotmail app for Amazon’s Kindle Fire
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Microsoft’s Hotmail service now has a Kindle Fire app.
OK, this may not be as exciting as Google releasing a Gmail app for Apple’s iPhone, and there is still no native Gmail app for the Fire. But the Hotmail app for the Fire should be a worthwhile release for many owners of Amazon’s popular 7-inch tablet due to the addition of Exchange Active Sync.
Unlike Amazon’s included email app on the FIre, which merely downloads your messages via POP3, Microsoft’s Hotmail app will synch emails, contacts, folders and subfolders, said David Law, Microsoft’s director of Hotmail product management, in a blog post.
While the free Hotmail app for the Fire is technically an Android app, the version for Amazon’s tablet is different from the standard Hotmail Android app used by more than 3 million people, Law said.
The differences between the Fire Hotmail app and the standard Android Hotmail app have to do with the changes Amazon made to Android to create the Fire-specific operating system it runs on its tablet, which as we’ve noted before is unlike any other version of Android out there.
‘Because the Kindle Fire uses a different implementation of Android, we needed to make some updates to our previous Hotmail app for Android to ensure it worked well,’ Law said. ‘Now that we’ve finished the work and the app is ready, we’re excited to give customers a great Hotmail experience on the Kindle Fire.’
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+