Adam Birney / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Amazon developer documentation has confirmed that future Fire TVs will run an Android 14-based OS, quelling rumors of a full switch to Vega OS.
- Amazon has avoided referring to the upcoming version as Fire OS, but the reason for this isn’t yet clear.
- Amazon is already providing select developers with virtual Android 14-based Fire TV devices for testing.
Amazon has confirmed that a new Fire TV operating system based on Android 14 is in development, putting to rest any question that the company might be moving away from Android entirely.
As spotted by AFTVNews, the confirmation comes from new developer documentation on the Amazon App Store. It explicitly references the upcoming OS, but interestingly, Amazon doesn’t refer to it as Fire OS. Instead, the name Android 14-based Fire TV is used, even when listed alongside previous OS versions.
Fire TVs currently run Fire OS 8, which is based on Android 11. The confirmation of an Android 14-based OS suggests that at least some future Fire TV models will continue using Android, even as Amazon experiments with its own Vega OS on other devices like the Echo Show 5 and Echo Spot.
The documentation also reveals that this will be the first Fire TV OS in years to run exclusively in 64-bit mode, requiring app compatibility adjustments. Amazon has also begun offering select developers remote access to virtual Android 14-based Fire TV devices for app testing ahead of release.
We have reached out to Amazon for comment on the reason for the apparent Fire OS branding shift.
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