Last week, it was reported that Amazon is quietly developing its own operating system that will replace Android on its Fire TV devices before expanding to other products, including the company’s numerous smart displays. Janko Roettgers revealed the details in its low pass Newsletter. The report predicted that Amazon’s software, codenamed Vega, could appear on Fire TV streaming hardware next year.
But how he discovered it Zatz is not funny!, it turns out that this new local operating system is already being used in the latest Echo Show 5, which shows its software as “OS 1.1” instead of the expected Fire OS. The low number is an obvious indication that we are looking at a completely new platform; The Echo Show 8, by comparison, currently runs Fire OS 7.5.6.1. In terms of appearance and user experience, Vega OS looks a lot like the Fire OS it replaces.
Through his own sources and by tracking down Amazon job postings, Roettgers pieced together the history of Vega’s development and says the Linux-based operating system is at a “fairly advanced” stage. Amazon has reportedly informed certain partners of the impending move away from Android, which until now has been the basis of its Fire OS fork software.
Amazon’s operating system is already in the latest Echo Show 5 and Fire TV could be the next
By implementing its own operating system, Amazon would effectively be starting over, meaning that developers of popular streaming apps would have to create new versions specifically for this new platform. But Fire TV in particular has enough popularity to force developers to play along: in March, Amazon announced which had exceeded 200 million devices sold worldwide.
Having full control over its operating system from top to bottom would also help Amazon get even more ad revenue from Fire TV, its smart displays (when that change happens), and other products. In addition, it will allow the company to keep the software updated at its own pace; Fire OS and many Android TV streamers are often based on older versions of Google’s platform. But Fire TV owners already expressing concerns about the possibility that Amazon’s custom operating system eliminates power user functions such as downloading.
At its fall hardware event, Amazon showed off its latest Fire TV OS features, including more nuanced conversational voice search (powered by ai) and a continuous viewing queue that aggregates content from numerous streaming services. The company also rolled out its Ambient Experience to more devices: the mode can display widgets and other information visible when Fire TV streaming products are idle.
