Question

AFAIK, push notifications require a Google account to work (they piggyback on GTalk), so does that mean for apps for the Kindle Fire are doomed if they use the standard C2DM approach?

I couldn’t find any info on push in the Kindle Fire FAQ or anywhere on the web.

Answer 1

As far as I know yes. Everything I have read indicates that Amazon stripped C2DM support out of the Fire. I know right? If you or your users are willing to root it, installing Google services is an option.

Urban Airship has a push service named Helium which purportedly works with Kindle Fire. I have yet to be able to try it though.

Update 8/13/2013

There is also Amazon SNS. There is a great blog on the topic.

See this code snippet for how to implement a receiver ( from the Amazon Web Services blog):

public class ExternalReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        Log.i("ExternalReceiver","onReceive");
        Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
        StringBuilder payload = new StringBuilder();

        for(String key : extras.keySet()){
            payload.append(String.format("%s=%s", key, extras.getString(key)) + '\n');
        }

        Intent newIntent = new Intent();
        newIntent.setClass(context, AndroidMobilePushApp.class);
        newIntent.putExtra(context.getString(R.string.msg_field), payload.toString());
            newIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
        context.startActivity(newIntent);
    }
}