Morningstar fires up app for the Kindle Fire

Advisers might just be tempted to use the device for a little work — in addition to play

All you advisers that got a Kindle Fire over the holidays might actually now be tempted to turn it to some work use — in addition to reading books and streaming movies and television shows off Amazon Prime.
Morningstar just launched a new free mobile application for the Android-based tablet, available now at Amazon’s Appstore.
I was curious about why they chose the Kindle Fire as their first tablet platform over the Apple iPad and the reasoning seems sound enough.
I heard back from Morningstar spokesman Shawn Malayter (he is director of media relations for their software division) that the new app leverages a lot of the technology the company used in developing their Android application.
And that makes perfect sense because the Fire runs a customized version of Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread).
Mr. Malayter added that the iPad app is still in development and will be released later this year.
I am happy to hear that last point.
I’m hoping this means that Morningstar will provide more than just a clone of their already available iPhone application and is instead planning to take better advantage of the larger screen and possibly waiting for final dev details of the iPad 3 (it has taken a while though, having launched their iPhone application in May of 2009).

I am also curious as to why Morningstar and Amazon are not hyping it a bit more because it appears to be the first and really only financial app available so far for the Kindle Fire.

Granted, this conclusion is based on my search of Amazon Kindle Fire software conducted from a PC-based web browser though — but I will make a search from the Kindle Fire itself at home tonight (we bought one for my daughter for the obvious reasons, including its $199 low price).

I also find this whole thing a fairly interesting development too because it illustrates the possibilities of the Kindle Fire as more than just an e-reader and video streaming device.

Indeed while it is not as capable in terms of some aspects of its hardware as the iPad 2, some of the higher end Android tablets or the Blackberry Playbook it is still capable enough and it is running a customized, if fairly locked down version of Android.

It makes me wonder what deals might be afoot between the Android Market folks and Amazon to port over others of the thousands of Android apps available but I digress.

Getting back to the Morningstar app

In terms of specific features Morningstar’s Fire application allows users to view performance charts for stocks, funds, exchange-traded funds and indexes.
You can also access the Morningstar Market Barometer and data on each of the Morningstar fund categories; and track securities from global markets with listings of gainers, losers and most active.
Additionally, users may sync to and view their Morningstar.com portfolios and watch lists and research both U.S. and Canadian securities and Asian and European indexes. Morningstar.com Premium subscribers can access Morningstar’s independent analyst research reports on more than 1,600 stocks, 2,000 funds and 400 ETFs through a subscriber log-in portal.
Enhanced for compatibility with the Kindle Fire and to support its high-resolution graphics, the Morningstar.com mobile app allows users to tap ticker names on the screen to access real-time quotes and find the latest news articles related to their portfolios.
A horizontal view of the screen reveals additional data points and information about holdings, and tapping on column headers enables sorting of holdings by individual data points.

UPDATE

After I posted this piece I came across a couple interesting tangential tidbits of speculation online.

First I landed on this story about the possibility of two new Kindle Fire models set to come out later this year (from my alma mater PC Magazine). According to this story that would mean both a new version of the 7-inch tablet (the original Fire has a 7-inch screen) and a larger 9-inch version. Also according to this story an outside analyst (Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan) estimated 2011 4Q sales of six million Fires by Amazon (versus 13 million Apple iPads — not bad).

That PC Mag piece in turn cited a post at AllThingsD.com by fellow Polak tech reporter John Paczkowski. He quoted Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley’s revised Kindle Fire sales estimate projections: 14.9 million units this year (up from the original estimate of 12.7 million).

To download the Morningstar app for Kindle Fire point it’s browser to the Amazon Appstore