Report: Amazon will ditch Android in ‘all of its new devices’ starting with Fire TV

Ben Schoon | Nov 9 2023 - 10:35 am PT

Amazon has been using “forked” versions of Android to power its products for years now, but the company is apparently planning to swap that out with a new web-forward “Vega” OS starting with new Fire TV devices.

From the Fire Tablet to the Fire TV and more, Amazon has built much of its hardware on the back of Android, and specifically by using AOSP to “fork” the OS to skip out on Google services and heavily customize the platform. While apps can be shared between an Amazon tablet and one from Samsung and others, visually the software is drastically different. Amazon also generally lags well behind on Android versions, with even the latest Amazon tablets still running Android 11.

Apparently that, and the overkill that comes from running a full smartphone operating system on a product as simple as a smart display, has inspired Amazon to move to an in-house OS called “Vega.”

A report from Janko Roettgers on Lowpass reveals Amazon’s plans to switch to “Vega” on “all of its new devices” in time, starting with future Fire TV launches. The Linux-based, web-forward operating system would replace Android on Amazon’s TVs and rely on React Native to develop apps in Javascript. Those apps would work on the new “Vega” OS, as well as other devices.

Top comment by Andromeda

Liked by 96 people

That last paragraph is really key - Fire Tablets live and die by their ability to sideload the Google Play Store. If dropping android also means they can't run APK's from the biggest store that's going to be a big problem. Firestick performance has always been super slow so hopefully this results in better performance, but I can't imagine switching away from GoogleTV at this point.

View all comments

Roettgers says that Amazon has been working on this effort since 2017 or so, with “hundreds of people” working on development and “most” of the work already done. Apparently, “Vega” is already being tested on Fire TV devices, with plans apparently in store for Amazon to start shipping new hardware using the new OS as soon as early next year.

It would certainly be a radical shift for Fire TV, both for app providers and users. App providers would be required to build new apps for the platform, while users would lose the ability to sideload Android apps on their devices. While the broad market likely doesn’t use this functionality, Fire TV streamers have appealed to a niche of users looking to sideload apps that aren’t officially available on Amazon’s App Store. Luckily, Google TV streamers such as the $50 Chromecast (as well as the Nvidia Shield TV on Android TV) are still Android-based and allow for the same functionality.

It’s unclear if the change would ever apply to Amazon’s Fire Tablets, which more heavily rely on native Android apps, but it would certainly make sense for Amazon’s Echo smart displays. Evidence suggests it could also be used on in-car entertainment systems.