After much thinking I finally decided to get a tablet for charts, pdf's, irealpro, etc we've all talked about for gigs.

This is all I'm using it for, nothing else so all I need is a good, basic inexpensive large screen tablet. The el cheapo's I see online all have terrible reviews, poor screens, etc so I wind up checking out the new Amazon Fire HD 10.1 and bought it last night from Best Buy. It's only $149, has a high resolution screen and gets great reviews. Any other Android tablet with decent reviews costs twice that or more with a 10" screen. Yes I know iPads are great for musicians but for the money I just don't need one, all I need is something for charts.

I had already read the Fire cannot access the Google app store, it uses Amazon's app store so of course I do more research. I find all of the apps I'm considering are available including MobileSheets, Fakebook Pro and...irealpro.

I thought.

Turns out I didn't look closely enough. When I did a Google search for "Amazon irealpro app" the page that certainly looks like it's available has a little blurb off to the right that I didn't see on my phone that says "You are not eligible to purchase this app due to geographical restrictions". What!? What the heck is this? I do more looking and find this:

https://technimo.helpshift.com/a/ireal-pro/?s=purchases&f=ireal-pro-in-amazon-app-store

Which leads to this:

https://www.howtogeek.com/232726/how-to-install-the-google-play-store-on-your-amazon-fire-tablet/

Talk about blindsided. I think it's cool that I could turn this into a Google tablet BUT...if doing this winds up turning it into a frisbee I may not be able to return it (well I could try, haha) but they probably would if I exchanged it for a Samsung for double the money.

My question is has anybody done this, does this look legit? Or is trying to save $150 not worth it and I should get a double the money tablet. Which would put me into the ball park of the new iPad 9.7 for $350 but dammit all I need is a stupid 10" or larger chart reader.

Thanks

It would have been nice if they had at least explained why they quit "officially" supporting the device. Doesn't help any to wonder though.

My wife has impaired vision. I'm using the laptop she use to have (Dell Inspirion) because she couldn't she the screen anymore. We went to BestBuy and looked at Microsoft Surface, Windows laptops, Apple laptops and Ipads before settling on a Samsung Galaxy with a 10.3" screen. For her the screen is easier to see than an Apple with a Retina screen. She's had it going on two years and she still likes it.

My guess is it would work well sitting on a stand with you looking at the screen from a short distance.

My eight inch fire that I bought last Christmas can access the Google play store, took me about 5-10 mins to do it following the instructions from the net. Its only a matter of installing four or five apps in order that they tell you to.

I don't think it can mess up your tablet, like other stuff like rooting can do, as its only installing apps.

But then again you can never be 100% sure what nasties are in those apps, I was willing to take the chance, but took the precaution of removing my credit card details from google play in case anyone else could access my account. If I want to buy an app, I will only put the details back on temporary.

Google play works 100% as well as other google apps like google books and drive.

As amazon update their tablet automatically there is a chance that it might disable google play.

But there again if you are one of those people who follow the rules to the latter then amazon didn't put google play on your tablet, so they don't want you to have it.

You make up your own mind, I did!

Good info, thanks. No, I'm not worried that I'm somehow cheating Amazon. I found a little tidbit on the net that said the same thing you did, these mods are only apps not something that digs down deeper into the OS so I'll go ahead and give it a go.

It's also a good point about automatic updates, a Google search found how to disable it.

Bob

Ha, it worked perfect! It took a few minutes for the Google App Store to open up the first time. I logged into my account, the apps appeared and there's a tab for apps already purchased and IrealPro was there so I clicked Install and voila!

No nastygrams from amazon probably because it's still an Amazon tablet. All that happened is I have access to the Google App store in addition to the Amazon one. The home screen didn't change, it's all Amazon. Just to show them I'm not a total ingrate I'll buy Fakebook Pro through them.

Bob

Nice one Bob!

Fakebook Pro is amazing. $3 from the Amazon app store. It is partially integrated with irealpro and is preloaded with their jazz and pop/rock playlists. But the really big deal is access to a boatload of other playlists in many genres fully indexed and ready to go. I spent the evening installing 7 or 8 of these that are 400-500 songs each. Those along with the irealpro playlists has to add up to 4-5,000 songs. And that is just to start. Fakebook Pro also has the ability to import anything you want from handwritten cheatsheets or pages from a music book you can take a pic of with your phone, or online or from a scanner or whatever. I found a bunch of songs I wanted in the irealpro forum that are not part of the preloaded playlists. All I did is click on the share icon, hit pdf and Fakebook Pro is listed as one of the destination options so it's an instant transfer that gets integrated into the master song list.

Am I ever going to play 5,000 songs, of course not but I'm an active gigging player and I'll get called by either people I know or a referral. If this huge list includes a new bands list it's a big help.

I really cannot believe I didn't do this sooner. I was afraid of the cost and learning curve I guess but $149 for a pretty nice 10" tablet and a no brainer access to all that content is really, really cool.

Bob

Bob,

Glad you are pleased with the results so far. It seems that having a tablet and the right app can provide a lot of opportunity and enjoyment.

Enjoyment...well, not so much but I'm getting there.

First for $3 you don't get a help file, you don't get a forum, you get squat. The website that does have all that amazing content has a FAQ but it's not sorted or anything and it's pretty useless for specific questions. Google searches are the same. Not enough people using it probably. You're on your own and all I can say is man o man it ain't easy.

My problem is basic. After I downloaded all those 5,000 plus songs there are still a whole bunch I need that are not there. There are multiple ways to get new songs into Fakebook Pro. I'm not going to list them all, suffice it to say initially, like half of yesterday, none of them worked for me. None, nada, zip.

Finally I figured out the "trick" for one and now this afternoon I've been whipping through quite a few songs. Two other ways that I would like to work, still don't and I emailed the developer in Sweden. Still, one good way is enough for now. If someone is having issues let me know.

I keep reminding myself this is really no different from nooby's having a tough time getting started with Biab. Tablets and Apps are new to me so I'm having a tough time too. These things are always easy once you know how...

Oh, almost forgot I created a playist and started with the tunes that are in my downloaded database. I put about 25 into my new playlist, went to put another one and the playlist is gone! GONE?! At least they're all in the master songlist so I had to recreate my playlist and put them all back. No issues since and I'll chalk that up to me fumble fingering around and touching something my mistake. The lesson there is you gotta be careful with touchscreens!

The other lesson is I need to run out and get an SD card. You can do a full backup that way so if that happens again it's there. I can also do it to the cloud but a cloud transfer of new songs is one of the ways that is not working for me right now and believe me I've tried. Amazon Prime, Google Drive, OneDrive, nope. Ain't happening.

Bob