Amazon is preparing to replace Android with its own custom-built Vega OS on Fire TV devices, and an accidental job posting for a software development manager for Prime Video just leaked it. We’ve been hearing rumors about this for a while, but it should arrive before the end of the year.
The job listing, which was quickly changed after Amazon was contacted, stated, “The Prime Video Fire TV organization is seeking an engineering leader that will help in building a Vega OS product that will delight customers worldwide” and “With the app launching in 2025, you will get to shape the future of this product as well as the culture of the team.”
This news isn’t a huge surprise for those of us who have been following the Vega story. Amazon has been quietly working on moving away from Android for years now. The company has already released three devices that run on Vega, which are the Echo Show 5 and Echo Hub smart displays, as well as the Echo Spot smart clock. However, a TV streaming device is a whole different beast.
It’s one thing to run a custom OS on a smart display, but a TV relies heavily on third-party apps, which brings a whole new set of challenges. The new OS is built in-house and is based on Linux. It uses React Native as its application framework, which is a big change from the Android-based Fire OS. This means that developers will be able to build native apps with JavaScript, and these apps can run on a variety of other TV operating systems as well.
While this sounds great, the big catch is that existing Android apps won’t work on Vega, so developers will have to rewrite their apps from scratch. This is a huge undertaking, and it’s a lot to ask from developers who already have to build apps for multiple platforms like Google TV, LG webOS, Roku, and Samsung’s Tizen OS. This may hurt the speed at which apps will come to Vega-based Fire TVs.
The new job listing also provides some insight into how the new OS will work. It mentions that the team is responsible for the dedicated Prime Video app on Vega OS, as well as all Prime Video experiences on the Vega Launcher. This suggests that Vega will have a content-first homescreen, which is similar to the current Fire TV OS. Instead of just showing a list of apps, it will likely feature and deep-link to individual shows and movies from those apps. This is a pretty common approach in the smart TV industry, so it’s not a huge surprise, but it’s good to know what to expect.
An official announcement could come as early as next week at Amazon’s fall devices event in New York. We may get more details about Vega and what specific hardware it will launch on. It’s also possible that Amazon could postpone the announcement, but given the job listing and other leaks, it seems like an official press release is imminent.
Source: The Verge
