Information from the editor Lower Pass assures that Amazon is developing a new Vega Linux operating system, as an Android replacement on your Fire TV, Fire Tablet, Echo and other devices.

The information is not confirmed, but there is enough substance to what it could mean to replace Android and end the relationship with Google on this matter. Amazon has been using a fork of Android, Fire OS, for more than a decade for its Fire TV streamers or its own brand of tablets.

The advantages of Android for manufacturers were obvious: Google has already done much of the work to create an operating system that can run on all types of devices and attract millions of app and game developers. Since Google offered the Android project open source, it was relatively easy for Amazon (and other manufacturers) to take the basis of the system, modify it for their own purposes, while making it easy for Android developers to port their apps. to the platform. Amazon.

Of course, using android is not “free”, although no royalties are paid and it requires remaining under the Google umbrella. And Amazon Fire OS is the most closed “Android” out there, blocking Google services and the Google Play Store by default.

Vega Linux says goodbye to Android

The information says so Amazon wants to leave Android and has been working on its own Linux-based operating system codenamed ‘Vega’ for several years. The development is quite advanced. It has already been tested on Fire TV streams, and Amazon has informed select partners of its plans to transition to a planned launch in 2024.

Amazon’s new operating system now uses a more web-based software model developers were asked to use React Native as application frameworkallowing them to create native applications with a Javascript-based interface. React Native would be key to launching Vega Linux, as the same apps would work for the new system, Android and even iOS, with the code savings it brings.

Although its use is most obvious in the Fire TV, since those devices don’t need as many apps as an electronic tablet, they say Amazon wants it for all of its current and future devices, including in-car entertainment products.

In the short term, it won’t be easy due to the lack of apps, and perhaps many of us who buy Amazon Android devices today because of its remarkable feature/price ratio wouldn’t do so with another system. But the company assumed it. It wants to break away from Google and offset the potential loss of hardware sales with advertising and its services.

Amazon is silent and there is no way to confirm this information. It must be said that this is not exactly new. It’s been more than a year since a wrote a company employee on an anonymous technical staff forum Blindthat Amazon was evolving “iOS and Android competitor for all devices and IoT”.