Currently, most products from Amazon, including the Fire TV Stick and Fire Tablet, run on a forked version of Android (AOSP). However, according to a new report from Lawpass, the company is developing a new operating system called Vega, which will replace the heavily modified version of Android on all the upcoming devices from the e-commerce platform, and the first product to debut with the new OS will be a new Fire TV Stick.
Reportedly, Vega is a Linux-based, web-forward operating system. It relies on React Native for the development of apps in Javascript, Amazon has been working on the development of the OS since 2017 and the company has completed “most” of the work. The publication claims that Amazon was inspired to develop the in-house OS as the forked version of Android AOSP that it is using is not only behind the current version of Android in terms of features but also overkill for small and affordable devices, such as the Amazon Echo Show.
According to the publication, the upcoming Amazon Fire TV Stick, which will use the Vega OS, will arrive next year. Currently, there’s no information if the company will also adapt Vega for other devices, such as Fire Tablets. However, it does make sense for Amazon to use the new OS for Echo Show products, which would benefit from a lighter operating system, offering not only a faster performance but also increased efficiency.
