microsoft jigsaw is installed but does not work

Chat apps are few on the ground, with no Slack or WhatsApp. Almost every app I use for work or personal productivity is not available, including Evernote and similar tools.

There’s no Amazon note-taking or drawing app for the stylus and few options in the store. The included mail app is extremely basic and doesn’t support business Gmail accounts. Fire OS has solid support from Microsoft with Office, Teams, Outlook and a few others available but if you don’t work within Microsoft’s ecosystem things get tricky. While Amazon’s store has most of the video streaming services you would want apart from Paramount+, it simply isn’t the case for productivity apps. As is the case with all Fire tablets, it has no official access to the Google Play Store or the firm’s apps. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardianīut it is Amazon’s app store that really lets the Max 11 down.

The home screen doesn’t support widgets or gesture navigation, relying on rather retro touchscreen buttons to get around.īasic split-screen apps are all Fire OS can manage, here with the Microsoft Office app on the left and Evernote in Silk on the right. You can do basic split-screen multitasking using the recent apps menu but is has no ability to have free-floating windows and there’s no app dock or taskbar, or any of the now-standard things on competitors aimed at productivity. The Max 11 runs the same Fire OS 8 based on Android 11 as other recent Fire tablets.

It is responsive on-screen and magnetically attaches to the side of the tablet when not in use. The kickstand struggles to hold it steady while typing on your lap but is fine on a desk. You also can’t click and drag like you might on a desktop to select text, which is annoying. The £90 ($90) keyboard is solid but the trackpad is a bit too sticky, meaning your finger skips when trying to scroll or point. The accessories are generally fine for the money. Here is where things really start to fall apart. This is a problem for Amazon as it is pitching the Max 11 as a productivity machine offering keyboard and stylus accessories to turn it into a laptop surrogate. But it is not as well suited to using apps and the browser than the squarer ratio used by an iPad and others. The screen is wide and short, which fits films and TV shows perfectly. The Fire Max 11 has a decent fingerprint scanner in the power button, which is a first for an Amazon tablet.

Microsoft jigsaw is installed but does not work