The first Fire TV device with Vega OS may be a downgrade, but Amazon appears determined to make it work. Here are more details about Vega OS.
Vega OS has officially launched with the Fire TV Stick 4K Select and will expand to more devices later, though Amazon has yet to announce a rollout timeline.
Vega OS does not introduce a new interface or major new features. Instead, it serves as a new foundation for Fire TV devices, giving Amazon tighter control over development and usage.
The company has confirmed that TVs will, for now, continue to run on the Android-based Fire OS, including both Amazon's own TVs and partner models from the likes of Hisense, TCL and Panasonic. None of these will be upgraded to Vega OS and there new TVs will be launched in the future with the Android foundation.
Transition away from Android
As explained in our previous article, Vega OS is Linux-based rather than Android-based (AOSP), meaning all existing apps must be rewritten to run natively.
At launch, however, Amazon will support "cloud apps", which are Android-based apps hosted on Amazon servers and streamed to your device as a video feed including the user interface, similar to a cloud-streamed game.
- "Select developers will have their existing apps cloud streamed while they develop a version of their app for Vega," Amazon spokesperson Melanie Garvey told Lowpass.
Fire TV will still look like this, at least for the time being. Photo: AmazonCloud apps
This workaround, highlighted by Janko Roettgers from Lowpass, is detailed in Amazon's documentation as Amazon Cloud App Streaming.
Amazon itself will decide which apps qualify as "Amazon cloud-hosted apps", which is what you will see in the user interface. Only select video streaming apps are eligible (no games or utility apps).
What remains unclear is how this will affect the user experience, and more importantly how Amazon will manage the transition. The company says it will host these apps for free for at least 9 months but what happens afterward if a developer refuses to rewrite their app for Vega OS? Will apps that were available when users bought the Fire TV Stick 4K Select suddenly vanish?
The situation is further complicated by Amazon continuing to sell Android-based Fire TV devices, while partner TVs also remain Android-based for now. Developers will therefore need to maintain two separate native apps for Fire TV if they want to provide an optimal experience.
Almost 300 million Android-based Fire TV devices have been sold so far and Amazon has no plans to transition any of them to Vega OS.
No support for sideloaded apps
Amazon will not allow sideloading via cloud apps, and while Vega OS includes a local sideloading function, it is restricted to developers and requires a command line interface. According to AFTVNews, each sideload triggers a reboot.
In other words, sideloading on Vega OS devices is effectively off the table for consumers. This is a major shift from current Android-based Fire TV devices that fully support sideloading.
Similarly, Google is limiting sideloading support on Google TV, even as the EU continues to pressure Apple to open its platforms to sideloading.
- Source: Lowpass, AFTVNews
