Fire Max 11: Delete icon from home screen?

[Catlady]

I set up my new Fire Max 11 using the "restore" option from my Fire 10. Some of the apps from the Fire 10 are not supported by the Fire 11 and are no longer in the Amazon Appstore, and I ended up with little gray squares on on the home screen, representing these missing apps. Sideloading apk files changed those little gray squares to proper app icons. Except one. I can't get rid of a gray square placeholder for Newsstand, which no longer exists.

I can't uninstall it from the Fire 11, because it isn't installed. There's no option to delete the icon. I found a site with old versions of Newsstand and tried installing a couple of them to see if they'd replace the gray square (so I'd then have the ability to delete the app), but they didn't.

Amazon tech support couldn't figure out a way to do it, finally landing on a factory reset and re-download of my Fire 10 apps. But before I do that, I am hoping someone here might have a less drastic solution.

Thanks!

[tomsem]

If you have some folder like Utilities or Amazon (to de-clutter Home) you could at least stick it in there.

If you install an alternate launcher (I have no recommendations) you might be able to use that to delete it.

Factory reset (without subsequent restore) doesn't seem like such a bad option, at least it would not be for me. I never really found many Amazon Appstore apps worth installing.

I decided to put Google Play on my Fire Max 11 to get the few apps that I didn't want to side load and keep having to update by hand, as I'd done in the past. I had not bothered to do this with any of my ten or so Fire tablets previously. It was not that hard, but you just need to get the right set of APKs. But having done it I would not want to factory reset and have to do it again. Hopefully, I will never have to.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tomsem

If you have some folder like Utilities or Amazon (to de-clutter Home) you could at least stick it in there.

Thanks, that's what I decided to do; I had a folder for News already, so I put the Newsstand nonexistent app there. It will annoy me less if I don't see it. But why there isn't a simple option to get rid of a placeholder is baffling. Surely other customers upgrading from earlier tablets must have encountered the same situation of an incompatible or discontinued app.

If you install an alternate launcher (I have no recommendations) you might be able to use that to delete it.

I had to Google that; eek, no thanks.

Factory reset (without subsequent restore) doesn't seem like such a bad option, at least it would not be for me. I never really found many Amazon Appstore apps worth installing.

If I'd done the factory reset, I was planning on deleting from the old tablet the apps that had been problematic before doing the restore. The Amazon tech guy thought that would work. But then I decided the heck with it.

I decided to put Google Play on my Fire Max 11 to get the few apps that I didn't want to side load and keep having to update by hand, as I'd done in the past. I had not bothered to do this with any of my ten or so Fire tablets previously. It was not that hard, but you just need to get the right set of APKs. But having done it I would not want to factory reset and have to do it again. Hopefully, I will never have to.

I may try that on the old Fire tablet before I have to send it back for the trade-in. But sideloading generally seems to work well enough for me.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Thanks, that's what I decided to do; I had a folder for News already, so I put the Newsstand nonexistent app there. It will annoy me less if I don't see it. But why there isn't a simple option to get rid of a placeholder is baffling. Surely other customers upgrading from earlier tablets must have encountered the same situation of an incompatible or discontinued app.

Apparently it is something that can happen on other Android devices with custom launchers. Amazon has just not anticipated this situation with theirs.

I don't know what it takes these days to get them to fix things. As a former software quality engineer, I always make a point to report the things I find. There was a pretty obvious bug with immersion reading with the iOS app that caused overwriting of reading position when switching from one book to another. I must have reported it about 6 times by one means or another. 6 months later, it is finally fixed. The last time I reported was on Amazon Device forum. Someone posted that 'oh, Amazon doesn't pay attention to bug reports here', but maybe they do.

This is the first Fire which I've paid to remove the 'special offers'. Having fingerprint unlock is worthless if you still have to swipe the ad away. And it removes the ads from Home Screen as well.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Apparently it is something that can happen on other Android devices with custom launchers. Amazon has just not anticipated this situation with theirs.

I don't know what it takes these days to get them to fix things. As a former software quality engineer, I always make a point to report the things I find. There was a pretty obvious bug with immersion reading with the iOS app that caused overwriting of reading position when switching from one book to another. I must have reported it about 6 times by one means or another. 6 months later, it is finally fixed. The last time I reported was on Amazon Device forum. Someone posted that 'oh, Amazon doesn't pay attention to bug reports here', but maybe they do.

This is the first Fire which I've paid to remove the 'special offers'. Having fingerprint unlock is worthless if you still have to swipe the ad away. And it removes the ads from Home Screen as well.

Well, the offending gray square is suddenly gone: Poof! It's not in the folder where I put it--nor in any other folder in case I made a mistake when dragging it. It's just gone, like it never was. While I am happy it disappeared, I am incredibly annoyed about all the wasted time.

I kept the special offers on my first Fire tablet, but paid to get rid of them on my last one and on the new one. I am frugal, but the ads were annoying. I did not use the fingerprint or even a password on the Fire 11. I find the fingerprint sensor on my phone very erratic and didn't want to bother with using it on a tablet that usually stays home.