Amazon Confirms Fire TV Is Dropping Android

According to a job listing spotted by AFTVNews, Amazon makes it clear that the company plans to ditch Android for its own "VegaOS" operating system. "The new platform is said to rely on React Native and would require new apps to be built," reports 9to5Google. From the report: As spotted by AFTVNews, a job listing from Amazon was looking for a "Fire TV Experience Software Development Engineer." The job listing's description makes it abundantly clear that a key part of the role is focused on the transition from Android to the rumored "VegaOS," because it quite literally says that's what is happening, with Amazon saying that Fire TV is transitioning from "FOS/Android" (Fire OS/Android) to "native/Rust" and even explicitly mentioning React Native. The listing, which has since been removed, provides extremely strong evidence of Amazon's plans, which is probably why it was so quickly removed.

Re:

[dgatwood]

many such projects run in parallel to current development in large tech companies. It provides them options, it doesn't provide definite proof they will transition. Like all companies they don't like being stuck dependent on a 3rd party, especially a competitor and like to be in a position to pviot.

So they go from an OS built by Google to a bunch of interface glue code built by Facebook? I'm having a hard time seeing the benefit here, particularly when glue layers like that tend to result in poorer user experiences than native app development. What do they hope to gain? Are they just trying to switch to RISC-V chips before Android is ready or something?

Re:

[dgatwood]

Nobody cares

For a product like a smart TV stick, yeah, pretty much. I'll be more interested to see if this leads to them trying to move their tablets over.

Re:

[rossdee]

" I'll be more interested to see if this leads to them trying to move their tablets over."

I would be very concerned if they try to force their existing tablets to move over.
Since I have some.

And the Amazon music app sucks.
(I download music I buy to this PC, and then copy it over to the Kindle fire, and my phone, and use a 3rd party android music app)

Re:

[Tough Love]

Cry in your beer, big tech doesn't do backward compatibility.

Re:

[Tough Love]

an OS built by Google

Android never was an "os built by google". It is 1) purchased by google and 2) just a java-oriented skin on Linux. Java was a huge mistake, even if Oracle had not gone all evil. Losing the java library focus is losing a thick slimy layer of ugly guck. Basically going back to native Linux, with a Javascript skin this time, and even fewer pretensions of being an actual OS.

Re:

[votsalo]

Java was a huge mistake

Java was a good choice for Android because it was the most popular language at the time, and it is compiled to bytecode that runs on a variety of CPUs. It was more important for Android to get a lot of developers writing apps for it, than to be a technically good OS. The problem with Linux is that it does not have a popular/universal UI API, as far as I know. Does it? What is it? X11, Wayland, QT? Android's goal was not to solve the "linux on the desktop" problem, but to create a new popular UI locked

Re:

[dgatwood]

Android never was an "os built by google". It is 1) purchased by google

The Android we have today doesn't even resemble [appleinsider.com] what was purchased by Google, though. It wasn't even a touch-based OS. So arguing that Google didn't build Android is somewhat disingenuous. They bought some of the earliest foundational code. By that same definition, you could say that Apple didn't make macOS (X), because they bought it from NeXT (or NeXT bought them for -$427 million), or that NeXT didn't built NeXTStep because it is based in part on BSD and Adobe's PostScript rendering engine.

Java was a huge mistake, even if Oracle had not gone all evil. Losing the java library focus is losing a thick slimy layer of ugly guck. Basically going back to native Linux, with a Javascript skin this time, and even fewer pretensions of being an actual OS.

This has b

Re:

[Tough Love]

Android is really just a skin on Linux, not a real OS (likewise iOS). As such, it's not particularly expensive or difficult to re-skin, then brag about creating a new OS.

Re:

[dgatwood]

Android is really just a skin on Linux, not a real OS (likewise iOS). As such, it's not particularly expensive or difficult to re-skin, then brag about creating a new OS.

IMO, if you think Android is just a skin on Linux and iOS is just a skin on BSD, then you're grossly underestimating both. They might use the same kernel, but the kernel is not an operating system.

Neither one uses X11/Wayland/*, so the display layers of both operating systems are entirely unrelated to the display layers of Linux/BSD. And neither operating system includes the command-line utilities that would be required for POSIX compliance or equivalent. Most of the libraries that you'd typically find o

Re:

[Tough Love]

you're grossly underestimating both

Nonsense. If you were right then we wouldn't be seeing Linux operating system skins being announced several times a year, some even achieving deployment.

They might use the same kernel, but the kernel is not an operating system.

It's vastly more of the operating system than you think it is. The next biggest piece is the C library. After that comes init and services management, where Android rolls its own. Not a huge project. Nobody considers graphics libraries to be part of the operating system, that's application code. And this is where the bullshitters love to spin their operatin

Re:

[dgatwood]

It's vastly more of the operating system than you think it is. The next biggest piece is the C library. After that comes init and services management, where Android rolls its own. Not a huge project. Nobody considers graphics libraries to be part of the operating system, that's application code.

Maybe in the Linux world, you could argue that, because the libraries aren't created by the same people as the OS, are an optional install, and are shared with multiple operating systems. But are you saying you don't consider the Windows graphics libraries to be part of the operating system? Really?

You and I have very different and fundamentally incompatible definitions of operating system. In my world, kernels are getting smaller, and more and more support functionality is moving out into user space. B

Re:

[Tough Love]

The world is dumbing down and you you are leading the dumb charge. In this dumb and dumber world you merely need to identify as an operating system engineer and your dumb followers will hold you in great dumb esteem. Dumb egos wank off happily into the dumb sunset, have a nice dumb day.

Re:

[dgatwood]

The world is dumbing down and you you are leading the dumb charge. In this dumb and dumber world you merely need to identify as an operating system engineer and your dumb followers will hold you in great dumb esteem. Dumb egos wank off happily into the dumb sunset, have a nice dumb day.

Whatever, dude.

Sincerely, an actual (former) OS developer [mklinux.org].

Thought they embraced ReactOS

[MIPSPro]

I misread and thought they'd capitalize on all the Win32 and MFC coders already out there and switch to ReactOS. I laughed when I saw my mistake then kinda tapped my chin thinking, "Now wait a minute. That actually isn't a terrible idea."

Amazon lock in

[olmsfam]

Gotta make sure you are locked in to that amazon store. Wouldn't want side loading or consumer choice.

Re:Amazon lock in

[rogoshen1]

you WILL watch the ads and be happy!
(just kidding, you will go to pirate bay and download the shows you're already paying for via prime membership. Then watch them using kodi or plex, and you will be happy. Amazon can go pound sand. Get fucked Bezos*.)

*or whoever is currently in charge of finding icebergs over at Amazon.

Re:Amazon lock in

[MachineShedFred]

More than that, it was very nice to read that they net $30B in net profits in 2023, so clearly they need the additional ad revenue from their mediocre video streaming service...

Re:

[xeoron]

That side loading and unlocked fire devices are the only way they are used by all the people I know. I hate those devices, yet there is a massive community that only uses it because what they can side-load. They will lose a lot of business switching to this different OS.

Re:

[dgatwood]

That side loading and unlocked fire devices are the only way they are used by all the people I know. I hate those devices, yet there is a massive community that only uses it because what they can side-load. They will lose a lot of business switching to this different OS.

On Fire TV? Tablets, yeah, but Fire TV?

FFS....Why?!?

[Somervillain]

Maintaining an OS is hard work, especially keeping it patched and modern. Android is already free and open source, so they don't save any money. Amazon devices are already loss leaders with no profit margin. How long before these end up being bot farm tools? Does Amazon have any incentive to maintain this and keep them from being attacked? What is with big tech and reinventing the wheel? Precisely what do they get that they can't get from Linux or Android?

Re:

[Narcocide]

Precisely what do they get that they can't get from Linux or Android?

... I dunno, maybe a bot farm?

Re:FFS....Why?!?

[dgatwood]

Maintaining an OS is hard work, especially keeping it patched and modern.

Amazon doesn't exactly keep their Android version up-to-date. Their latest tabled operating system, Fire OS 8, is still based on Android 11 (2020). If they can't even do that, what hope do they have of maintaining an entire OS?

Android is already free and open source, so they don't save any money. Amazon devices are already loss leaders with no profit margin. How long before these end up being bot farm tools? Does Amazon have any incentive to maintain this and keep them from being attacked? What is with big tech and reinventing the wheel? Precisely what do they get that they can't get from Linux or Android?

I'm with you. I don't understand what they could possibly gain, unless perhaps they want to go into console gaming and prevent people from side-loading Android games so they can monopolize the app market.

NIH is real.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

I'm with you. I don't understand what they could possibly gain, unless perhaps they want to go into console gaming and prevent people from side-loading Android games so they can monopolize the app market.

Chances are Amazon wants to move away from Android as they're fed up with people using their devices (subsidized by Amazon, most likely) as generic Android streaming boxes by sideloading stuff. There's probably an industry taking Amazon devices and turning them into pirate streaming boxes.

That's about the o

Re:

[dgatwood]

Chances are Amazon wants to move away from Android as they're fed up with people using their devices (subsidized by Amazon, most likely) as generic Android streaming boxes by sideloading stuff.

That's plausible. On the flip side, if those folks made up more than a tiny percentage of the people buying their devices, their sales may plunge, and if they are just a tiny percentage of the people buying their devices, then it doesn't make much sense for that to be the driving reason behind a major technology shift.

I'm not saying it's not the reason, but if it is, then it doesn't sound like a very good reason.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

I would guess Terms of Service with Android. Android does not cost money however to use it, Amazon has to abide with Google's terms. I would guess that Amazon wants to do things like farm and sell every bit of data they can with their TVs that using Android will not allow them to do. So Amazon thinks that data is more valuable than the maintaining their own OS. Time will tell.

Re:

[Tough Love]

Maintaining an OS is hard work, especially keeping it patched and modern

So making the OS skin as thin a layer as possible is a distinct advantage. Valve does just fine with the thin skin they call SteamOS. The key again is to keep the skin thin, and push anything suitable to push back upstream for somebody else to keep it shiny and make it better while you get on with whatever your core competency actually is.

I confirm I dropped Amazon

[future assassin]

prime last week...

Performance

[devloop]

Performance is going to be atrocious going from real native apps to interpreted js interfacing with native controls.
It works on the PC reasonably well, but the FireTV devices are already underpowered.

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

c.f. the HTML5 interface that Palm developed - webOS on LG televisions. The original Palm Pre ran on a Cortex A8 with 256MB.

A lightweight OS mainly displaying 4K content via hardware codecs, is Javascript really a bottleneck?

Unless you're gaming via transpiled WASM or running VS Code on your telly...

In 2024?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Walmart has 4K GoogleTV devices for $20 or so running Android 13 and many TV's have it built in.

Why would I buy a FireTV device anymore?

They were cool in 2014, that's true.

Gamble

[TwistedGreen]

In my experience, Amazon's software quality for consumer products has been pretty poor... most of their apps are glitchy, inconsistent, and ugly. If I don't trust their crappy music app to work reliably, why would I trust their OS? This seems like a poorly thought-out idea but, that said, I don't see a problem with taking market share away from Google.

Bezos doesn't share with Indian from Google

[ConstantineXI]

It's all about spamming ads and not having to share the information and revenue.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Don't use Fire stick and don't remember why

[bsdetector101]

Don't use Fire stick anymore and don't remember why ??? lolol Actually no one in my family uses it any more. Kinda like Roku, used to be good, but lost most of the free channels. Everything's pay for view.

New apps? That's a bad idea.

[chas.williams]

The developers of the existing apps have a hard enough time already. Now they must maintain three different apps: Android, iOS, and VegaOS? No thanks.

Dumb move

[SuperDre]

Some major streamingservices are still not even supporting their current Android based FireTV, but luckily most of those androidTV based apps can be sideloaded onto the FireTV. But if they go with their own OS, that won't be happening. I know that I won't be buying a new FireTV device if I can't run my favorite 'homebrew' apps like Movian or even less of the major streamingservices.