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Amazon has officially confirmed what many of us suspected for months. Every future Fire TV Stick will ship with the company’s new Vega OS instead of the Android-based Fire OS that powered the lineup for years.
The confirmation was quietly tucked into Amazon’s Fire TV developer documentation. The page flatly states ‘Starting with Fire TV Stick 4K Select, all future Fire TV Sticks will run on Vega.’
For cord-cutters who love the freedom of sideloading APKs, this is a major shift. It’s exactly why I keep pointing people toward Google TV and Android TV hardware instead.
Vega OS is a closed platform. It only runs apps approved through the Amazon Appstore, and that catalog is already smaller than Google Play. Amazon also plans to begin charging developers for cloud apps, which could shrink the selection further.
This move lines up with a longer pattern. Amazon has been blocking third-party piracy apps on Firestick and Fire TV for a while, and the new Fire TV Stick HD already runs Vega. The Fire TV Stick 4K Plus and Fire TV Stick 4K Max are the last Android-based sticks that support sideloading.
Amazon only mentioned Fire TV Sticks in its statement. Cubes and Fire OS Smart TVs still run Android for now. The 3rd-gen Fire TV Cube from 2022 is the oldest product in the lineup and overdue for a refresh.
If Amazon follows its September hardware pattern, a new Cube could arrive later this year. I’d be shocked if it still ran Fire OS. Vega is clearly the direction, and Cubes and smart TVs will follow eventually.
Trust between Amazon and its customer base is already shaky after the recent lawsuit over Firestick slowdowns, and stripping out sideloading won’t help. Check out some of the comments on this Fire TV Reddit thread.
This is the exact reason I’ve been steering people toward open platforms. Google TV and Android TV devices give you real freedom to install apps from the Play Store, sideload APKs, and run the streaming setup you actually want.
If you’re shopping for a replacement streamer, check out the best Android TV/Google TV devices I’ve tested. For a wider look at what’s out there, our Firestick alternatives guide covers every major platform worth considering.
Amazon is closing the door on the openness that made Fire TV Sticks popular in the first place. Locking users into a tightly controlled app store helps Amazon’s bottom line but hurts anyone who likes to customize their streaming setup.
It seems to me that Amazon is trying to copy Roku’s business playbook of maximizing profits at the expense of the streaming consumer.
If flexibility matters to you, skip the new Fire TV Sticks and grab a Google TV or Android TV device instead.
For more details on this story, refer to the report from AFTVnews along with the official Fire TV developer website.
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