Amazon just released a new flavour of Fire OS, an update from version 5.6, that takes care of some bugs. The last release was cool and all, offering the ability to monitor smart home cameras with Alexa, but it also broke the installation of apps from unknown sources, which is a biggie.
Basically, people who wanted to download and install an Android APK that came from anywhere else but Amazon, had to go through complex workarounds all through November. That’s solved now with a fresh iteration of Fire OS 5.6, that fixes the bug. Once the fresh update comes, you’ll be able to see a regular “install” button, not the greyed out one, when you try to install an app downloaded on the device from outside the Amazon App Store.
Most Fire and Fire HD tablets are expected to get the update over the air automatically, but you can force it by going to the tablet’s Settings, Device Options and tapping “System Updates”. If an update was downloaded lately you can click “Update” to install it and if not, you can select “check now” and do what needs to be done. By the way, Fire OS 5.6 also brought app icons in the notification tray and tweaks to the settings area, so it was quite a big one.
What is it with those tablet updates breaking them? Apple, Microsoft and NVIDIA also broke tablets over the years with updates…
