I’m developing an Android application that relies on Google Drive for cloud storage. Right now, I use the official Google API Java client library to manage authentication and file interactions.
The challenge I’m facing is that this library requires Google Play Services to be installed on the device, and it mandates that users have a Google account set up in their device’s settings. While this setup works well on most Android devices, it poses problems for Amazon Kindle Fire tablets because they don’t natively include Google services.
I’m inquiring if there are other methods to authenticate with the Google Drive API that do not depend on the regular Google API client library. Could I use direct HTTP calls or perhaps some alternative library for authentication?
Alternatively, should I think about changing to a different cloud storage service like Dropbox that could be more suitable for Kindle Fire devices? I’d prefer to continue using Google Drive if I can, as I’ve already established everything, but I need a solution that functions seamlessly on all Android devices, including Kindle Fire.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
you can hit the REST API directly with okhttp or any HTTP client. just handle the OAuth2 flow yourself - it’s pretty straightforward. kindle fire’s got WebView so auth works no problem, then you call the Drive API endpoints with your bearer tokens. i’ve been doin this for years and it’s way more solid than wrestling with play services.
Hit this same issue about a year ago with an app that had to work on Fire tablets and other Android devices. Here’s what worked: Google Drive API supports OAuth 2.0 web flow, which completely skips Google Play Services. You make direct HTTP requests to Google’s OAuth endpoints, then use those access tokens for Drive API calls. Set up a WebView to redirect users to Google’s auth server, grab the authorization code, and swap it for access tokens. Works great on Kindle Fire since it just needs basic web functionality. You’ll handle token refresh yourself, but it’s pretty straightforward once you get it running. You lose some convenience features from the official client library, but all the core stuff still works. Way more reliable than making users sideload Google Play Services on Fire tablets.
Had this exact problem with Fire tablets in enterprise setups. Google’s REST API docs have everything you need - just skip their client library completely. I went with Retrofit for API calls and built a custom WebView to handle OAuth. The tricky part is token management since you lose automatic refresh, but it’s not that hard to store tokens securely and write your own refresh logic. Performance was actually better without the bloated Play Services dependencies. Google’s dev site has good examples for raw HTTP calls. Works great across different Android variants and you get way more control over auth.