Amazon Fire Tablets and other gear will reportedly switch away from Android

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Amazon has been working on an in-house replacement for its Android-based Fire OS, codenamed “Vega” and built for easier app development, according to reporting from Janko Roettgers at Lowpass.

Based on job listings, multiple sources, forum posts, and unguarded LinkedIn boasts, Roettgers writes that Amazon has been working on Vega since at least 2019, is mostly done with the core development, and is now focused on an SDK and developer outreach. Vega would replace the Fire OS that is installed on Fire TV sticks and televisions, Kindle Fire tablets, and other Amazon devices. Vega, based on “a flavor of Linux,” uses the popular JavaScript-based React Native as an application framework. This could simplify development for Fire devices alongside other React-ready platforms, including smartphones, desktops, and other smart TVs.

Fire OS is a fork of Android based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), but it’s far from the same thing. The Fire Max 11, a 2023 device, is running Fire OS 8, which is based on Android 11, released in 2020. As Roettgers points out, Fire TVs sold in 2023 are based on Android 9, from 2018. While an Android base provides a relatively familiar entry for developers that already have Android apps, rebuilding the AOSP project—meant to support a wealth of different devices and carrying years of technical debt—seemingly became frustrating enough for Amazon to push toward an in-house solution.