Katarzyna Petru
Amazon has officially confirmed its plans regarding Vega OS, the new operating system powering the latest Fire TV 4K Select devices. Although this is just the beginning, the company announces that Vega OS will be rolled out to more Fire TV models in the future – as part of a gradual implementation, without a specific release date.
Importantly, Vega OS does not yet change the appearance of the interface or introduce major novelties. This is rather the first step in a longer process aimed at distancing Fire TV from Android. In practice, this means that Amazon wants to take full control over its system – from updates to future features.
Therefore, for the user, nothing changes for now – the new Fire TV televisions still operate on a modified version of Android, namely Fire OS with Android DNA. But this will soon come to an end.
Building Your Own Application Ecosystem
As reported by Janko Roettgers from Lowpass, the biggest challenge for Amazon will be to create a new application ecosystem for Vega OS, which – unlike Android – is based on the Linux kernel. This means one thing: Android applications will not work on Vega OS.
Developers will therefore need to write their applications from scratch – as was the case with webOS from LG or Tizen from Samsung. In order not to be left with an empty application catalogue at launch, Amazon has introduced a temporary solution: so-called “cloud apps”, or applications that run in the cloud.
In practice, these are Android applications running on Amazon's servers – their interface and content are streamed to the device as if they were video. This is exactly how cloud gaming works. However, not all applications will be available in this form. Amazon has stipulated that this applies exclusively to video applications – not games, not tools. Furthermore, Amazon itself will decide which of them are “worth” being made available in the cloud. For users, this means that the most popular streaming services will appear on Vega OS right away, while the rest of the applications – if at all – will only come after being rewritten from scratch.
Risk: delays and disappearing applications
Amazon has assured that developers will receive 9 months of free cloud hosting to have time to create native versions of their applications. What comes after that? This is unknown.
If after these nine months the creators are not able to meet the deadline – or simply deem that Vega OS does not make business sense – applications may disappear from users' devices. This is quite a risky scenario, considering that Vega OS is just starting out and has minimal market reach. An additional problem is the fact that Amazon is still developing Android Fire TV, which means that developers have to undertake double work – maintaining the Android version and the new Vega OS.
No Sideloading Capability
Another controversial decision: no ability to install applications outside the Amazon store (sideloading). Technically, Vega OS allows this, but Amazon has blocked this option for users – it can only be used by developers through a command line tool.
This is quite a limitation, as many Fire TV users rely on this feature to install applications not available in the official store – often legal, but niche. So why the block? There may be two reasons: a desire to combat pirated streaming applications or complete control over their own ecosystem. Or perhaps both.
It is worth noting, however, that Amazon is not alone in this – Google also restricts sideloading on Android TV and Google TV, citing pressure from regulators.
Its own system, but its own success?
Vega OS is an ambitious step by Amazon that aims to become independent from Android and build its own television ecosystem – something akin to Apple, LG, or Samsung. But the road to this goal is long and fraught with pitfalls. On one hand, it presents an opportunity for greater control over software development and user privacy, while on the other hand, there is the risk of fragmenting the ecosystem and losing applications that have so far powered Fire TV.
For now, Vega OS is only the beginning of a new era. True changes are yet to come – and only then will we find out if Amazon can create something that lasts longer than nine months of free hosting.
