Amazon is shutting down Underground, its free Android app program

Yesterday, Amazon announced that it would be ending its Underground Actually Free Program, a shopping app that offers free versions of apps such as Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions, Monument Valley,or Office Suite Pro 8 for Android phone and Fire Tablet users.

In its statement, Amazon said that as it launched the program in 2015, it was building its own Appstore, and decided to end the Underground program while it continued to “expand the Amazon Appstore experience.” The company noted that access to the store will continue through the end of this summer, and that it will end support for the app in 2019.

Fire Tablet users will be able to use previously installed apps from the program, but “access to the Underground store will not extend beyond currently supported devices.” While company will also no longer accept new submissions for the program as of May 31st, existing developers will be able to continue to update their apps through 2019.

The program was launched in August 2015, and provided Android users with free apps paying developers royalties on a per-minute basis.