Amazon kills off ‘Test Drive’ feature that let you try out apps in a browser

BY GreenBot Staff

Published 17 Apr 2015

Amazon is putting out to pasture a feature that let you try out apps in the browser before downloading them to your device. 

ile it sounded like a neat concept, Amazon says it wasn’t seeing a ton of usage of its TestDrive feature on the Amazon Appstore. At its height the company says it had 16,000 apps available for trial runs.

ile the concept may have sounded like a good way to check out a paid app, it likely didn’t line up with how most people buy apps. Its most convenient to just browse on your device try out the app right away, especially with so many apps now going with the freemium model.

ay offers a better perk—you can uninstall an app up to 2 hours after downloading it get a full refund for paid versions.

The story behind the story: The Amazon Appstore is the retailer giant’s effort at getting developers to go through its own marketplace. ile it serves as the app storefront for its Fire devices, you can side-load the store on to your own Android device. Amazon frequently runs fire sales to attract new users by giving away paid apps.