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Amazon Fire Tablets and other gear will reportedly switch away from Android (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Amazon Fire Tablets and other gear will reportedly switch away from Android::TVs, Echo Show, and other gear could sport Amazon's in-house replacement soon.

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[–] N00dle@lemmy.world 50 points 10 months ago (4 children)

This seems like a bad plan. While Fire OS has always been an outdated mess of AOSP, it still supports large pool of apps with sideloading. This is also probably expensive to build and they continue losing large amounts with their Alexa stuff. I wish for a third option besides just Android and IOS ,but I'm not holding my breath for this being it.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 14 points 10 months ago

Amazon don't make money from sideloading.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, the chances of them getting any serious development going on beyond the basics is pretty low. Why would a developer add yet another platform to their workload? The ones that do double duty with iOS and Android both already complain about it being a pain in the ass.

You'd be dealing with a new market, so any dev is going to be sinking time and work on spec, hoping it's going to have enough users to repay their work.

I can see the usual steaming services shrugging and adding the new platform in, but you'd need a hell of a lot more than that if they plan to switch the fire tablets away from an android base.

Even the firestick moving away from an android base is going to alienate a lot of users. That ability to sideload stuff is a bigger draw than I think amazon realizes not a majority, no; but a big enough niche matters.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

I can see the usual steaming services

Freudian slip or intentional? Either way, it's perfect!

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The platform is React Native.

Most programmers already know some JavaScript, even if they hate it.

The "basics" will be any full featured website. That is hardly adding to a workload. Not exactly a new platform.

[–] raptir@lemdro.id 5 points 10 months ago

If you're buying a tablet from them and side loading the play store they are losing money. They sell Fire tablets for a loss to encourage you to buy stuff from their ecosystem.

[–] TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Microsoft gave up far too easily. We should have a Windows phone.

But the better alternate to iOS did not win. Google had the funds to push Android forward, where WebOS did not.