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Amazon props Vega to replace Android-based Fire OS on future smart devices
- infotainment 3y agoOn the surface, it seems like not being able to run any Android apps would significantly diminish the value proposition of Amazon tablets. I wonder if they'll have some kind of AOSP-based Android compatibility layer to mitigate that.
- dannyw 3y agoMy Kindle Fire is just a glorified Prime Video + VLC + web browser. I bet only a fraction of Fire users use more than Amazon + 'commodity' apps.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoI have two of them with the Kids accounts on them for my concern. Dozens of apps that they love. Maybe over a hundred.
- archgoon 3y ago[dead]
- xattt 3y agoTangential, but was Fuschia the backup plan for Google if they lost the lawsuit to Oracle?
- johncolanduoni 3y agoI don’t see how it would help, the lawsuit was about the Java layer not the Linux kernel.
- jmgao 3y agoNo, the backup plan was to switch the implementation of the Java core libraries from Apache Harmony to the already-GPLed OpenJDK.
- AuthConnectFail 3y agoThey'll be back.
- _the_inflator 3y ago> Vega’s reliance on React Native for app development Seems to me that Amazon does not need a complete OS. Most successful apps are Netflix and other “best viewed in a browser” apps. For a couple of buttons and images you prolly don’t need Android which seems overkill. So this isn’t against Android, but simply accepting the fact that most consumers are best served with more lightweight apps.
- fyokdrigd 3y agopeople only need android to run the browser. Google know this, hence why they killed fuchsia. with android nobody can make a clone without heavy investment, like amazon and Samsung did, while also paying the extremely high cost of keeping backporting thise changes every new version. heck even google screwed up their port for the pixel line in the 14 upgrade.
- Andrex 3y agoFuchsia isn't dead (yet). They just completed their rollout across the entire Nest Hub line. Only 16% of the team were impacted by the (reported) layoffs, which still leaves the other 84% working on something.
- fyokdrigd 3y agonest is also in the same "dead" group. no matter what the line workers think
- eternityforest 3y agoI'd rather they just use Ubuntu or else vanilla Android, but if they have anything like a normal GNU/Linux/PipeWire/DBus/Wayland userland available it could be cool .
- ZiiS 3y agoTBH Fire OS is already so diverged from modern Android developers either target it or they don't.
- drcongo 3y agoWhat does the word "props" mean in the context of this headline?
- thejarren 3y agoI would assume “props it up” like: readies it, positions it.
- kennyadam 3y agopreps would have been a better choice of word imo, perhaps it was a typo. I've never heard props used in this content before. edit: had the browser window open too long and my reply is pretty redundant now
- tyingq 3y agoI think "preps" got autocorrected.
- potemkinhr 3y agoI totally interpret this as a move to prevent any sideloading and ensure data collection and ad injection are being done on their part. Can't easily prevent those on something that's not a fully baked Android.
- kyriakos 3y agoWhich would make firesticks useless for me. I use them primarily as Plex / Kodi clients.
- hospitalJail 3y ago
- DrNosferatu 3y agoThe only reason I bought my firestick was android compatibility. - Wasn’t that also the reason for most people?
- kyriakos 3y agoEspecially if it will he locked down to prime only it will completely useless
- andsoitis 3y ago> Especially if it will he locked down to prime only it will completely useless Obviously it won't just be locked down to Prime. Amazon is not that silly.
- andsoitis 3y agoWouldn't Google Chromecast be the more logical choice if that is the main reason? Firestick has been wildly successful, and the vast majority of people buy it because it provides entertainment at a much cheaper price point than Apple or Roku, for example. The new Chromecast is relatively new, the first incarnation was a piece of crap that couldn't run any apps (it was literally just a way to cast from another device to your TV).
- izacus 3y agoFor a long time, Chromecasts didn't run Android and Fire Sticks did (and they were cheaper and easier to buy).
- Sparkyte 3y agoHere I was thinking chips...
- ThinkBeat 3y agoIf Amazon has had hundreds of people working on a Linux customized Linux distro since 2017, that seems excessive. Esp. given that Amazon should have 100% knowledge of what hardware it will need to support. Are there any contributions to mainline Linux source code from Amazon over this? > Amazon’s covert shift to a Linux-based operating system > 2017 itself. > A substantial workforce within Amazon’s Device OS group, reportedly numbering in > the hundreds, has diligently toiled on bringing Vega to lifeAmazon’s covert shift to a Linux-based operating system
- andsoitis 3y ago> If Amazon has had hundreds of people working on a Linux customized Linux distro since 2017, that seems excessive. Notwithstanding "The Mythical Man Month", some initiatives do in fact move faster when you throw more people at the problem. Not only can you explore more paths in parallel with more people, but the key insight is that you don't need absolute individual productivity in order to achieve overall good outcomes faster.
- pavlov 3y agoInterestingly we’re coming full circle back to the 2007 approach to mobile, when each vendor was trying to build their own Linux variant. There was Nokia with Maemo; the Japanese corporation Access was building the “next generation of PalmOS” on Linux [1]; and many others besides. Android killed them all. Now companies like Amazon who have invested heavily into customized Android are finding that their interests are so diverged from the Google-managed mainline that it might be easier to switch to a custom Linux. Something similar happened with Huawei (aka Honor) and their Harmony OS, though with extra geopolitical pressures. This kind of “cycle of reincarnation” is common in the tech industry, as specialization and generalization alternate between occasional disruptions. It’s often fascinating to watch. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Linux_Platform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_Linux_Platform
- synergy20 3y agoHuawei did it due to sanctions though
- andsoitis 3y agoEmbedded devices shine brighter when they run software that is much more memory and performance conscious than Android.
- hospitalJail 3y ago>Amazon who have invested heavily into customized Android are finding that their interests are so diverged from the Google-managed mainline What exactly is that? Given everyone from the US military to cars use Android, I'm not sure what sort of OS control they aren't getting. Can you imagine not working around the issue and deciding to fork your own? I'd be dying to know what it is. (Just going to guess the software guys aren't happy, but the executives think it gives them strategy. If its software based, I'd guess its communications/signals)
- smoofles 3y agoIf they create their own SoC with their own IP having their own system will make it easier to move forward, as they won’t need to share development concerns with a larger group (e.g. they want feature X to go into one direction, and Android takes it in a different one, meaning they would end up with a fork). This is not a huge issue with smaller/trivial features, but can get really cumbersome with bigger ones, and even more so if the forks start diverging more. As for control, see Apple & getting a modern GPU API that works on mobile and desktop and can be iterated quickly. For a large number of industries Android makes more sense because they depend on certain development processes (security, hardware support, regulated environment certification, etc), but for multimedia consumption a lot of those are not needed. Last, but not least, vanity can be a big part of such decisions, too. Engineers love to build stuff, even if it means reinventing the wheel for the Nth time.
- pjmlp 3y ago> Lowpass hints at Vega’s reliance on React Native for app development, a framework born from the Meta realms. This choice suggests Amazon’s ambition for cross-platform prowess, harmonizing app development across iOS and Android. While the report doesn’t explicitly address Vega’s potential migration to Fire tablets, one can’t help but wonder if this Linux-based revelation might unlock new dimensions for Amazon’s versatile devices. Ironically Android started out with JavaScript, and due to performance they pivoted into Java, if I remember correctly. I bet it will be the usual mostly written in C++, with JavaScript as kind of GUI markup language, actually. As that is the way many seem to use React Native, as a cheap alternative to QML / Qt.
- synergy20 3y agowhat about the tens of thousands android apps?
- pjmlp 3y agoThere it is mostly an interop for doing JNI calls into the OS APIs, as people keep forgeting NDK is only for game developers and Java native methods.
- synergy20 3y agoandroid apps is more than an interop or JNI calls, it needs the "jvm" and lots of java libraries, docker-alike solution is the only thing I can think of that it could possibly work, but it's very heavy on cpu and memory resources when you have many apps to install. it seems to me infeasible to be Android apps compatible when Vega is used, nobody is going to rewrite all Android apps in RN.
- pjmlp 3y agoAh, I misunderstood your point, I took it from the point of view of how React Native is used in the context of writing Android applications. As for Amazon, naturally if this goes forward they don't seem to care about keeping the Android ecosystem on their Fire tablets, as most likely doesn't bring them the business value they care about. Note that FireOS doesn't run standard Android applications anyway.
- tomComb 3y agoThe two most important pieces of android are the Linux kernel and the android app runtime. The article says that this new initiative from Amazon will use the Linux kernel and I would think they would have to maintain android app compatibility, so it’s hard to see that it’s much different then their existing FireOS. React native could be a way for them to build their shell and some core apps, but it really doesn’t replace android app compatibility.
- gedw99 3y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/htmx/comments/16p3rbo/hyperscript_with_hyperview/ https://www.reddit.com/r/htmx/comments/16p3rbo/hyperscript_w... It’s reactive native using htmx. Less hungry than react and simpler to develop on.