AMAZON FIRE APPSTARTER CODE

Interacting with HTML5 via a remote control is a very different experience than that of a mouse or touch screen.

AMAZON FIRE APPSTARTER CODE

The project contains code developers can re-use in their apps, as well as a design template for the couch-focused user experience as well. To address this need, we decided to create an open source HTML5 web app 'starter kit' that developers can use to quickly create a simple media app, ready to be customized and published in the Amazon Appstore. Though web browsers have been on TVs since the mid 90s, developers have never really targeted big screens and thus there is a notable vacuum of examples, guides or code available that web app developers can use to get started.

One of the most important pieces of beta feedback was the request for some sort of template to target the '10-foot Experience' on Fire TV. The program was a huge success, pinpointing technical issues that needed to be resolved before we opened access to web apps to the larger developer community. Over the summer of 2014, we ran an early-access beta program with a dozen or so web app developers who were interested in collaborating with us to bring their HTML5 media apps to Fire TV.

Here's an example of a media app using video content from the recent AWS re:Invent conference:

You can find this project on its GitHub project page here. Features of the project include an example user interface designed for the 10-foot user experience, support for the Fire TV remote control, and sample components to create and customize a media app. The Web App Starter Kit for Fire TV is a new open source project intended to help developers get up to speed quickly creating a simple media-oriented app for this exciting new web platform. Amazon Fire TV, including both the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, now supports HTML5 web apps.

Amazon fire appstarter