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We've always said that when you're buying a device that's essentially just a display, apps is where it counts. While Amazon does offer tons of TV shows, movies, books and music, it also has quite a selection of apps.
However, don't expect something with the depth or breadth of Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store. Although it's called Appstore for Android, you won't find many of your favorite Android apps here.
Big name apps, for the most part, are here. After all, who can live without Facebook? But other big-name apps are nowhere to be found, like Netflix, but that's for obvious reasons. Less obvious are other apps that you'd think should be on every platform, but not here.
If you're looking to load up a tablet with tons of apps you've come to love from Android, you're better off going with a Nexus 7. Remember, Amazon doesn't make money selling these tablets - it makes money by selling its services and products with these tablets acting as a portal to those things.
Still, you'll find a number of great apps and games via the Appstore for Android, or at least enough to satiate your most basic of needs when it comes to mobile devices (games, social networking, productivity, etc.).
Mayday
Amazon's brilliant Mayday service will be great for people who might not be as technologically adept as those of us who spend all our days tinkering with these devices.
Mayday is live video technical help for the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 (heavens that is painfully long to type every single time).
If you're running into issues with your tablet, or you have questions and need help, a customer service agent is just one tap away.
You may be thinking that it's a strange service, and that there's no way Amazon can deliver on this promise, but it does. Amazon promises that when summoned, an agent will be ready within 15 seconds of initiating a Mayday call. That is impressive.
What's great about having Mayday besides the obvious is that it eliminates the need for having to make a phone call or sending an email to get help, wondering if or when anyone will ever get back to you.
The only catch, and we'd hope this is obvious by now, is that you'll need to have an active Internet connection to access Mayday. So if you're not near Wi-Fi and you're having trouble with your tablet, you'll have to wait until you do have some way to connect to the Internet.
