Company / division: Fire TV
Amazon Announces Fire OS 6, Based on Last Year’s Android Nougat (Sep 29, 2017)
Alongside this week’s big Amazon hardware announcements, it’s apparently made a quieter announcement too: the launch of Fire OS 6, the latest version of the company’s fork of the Android operating system, which is used on Fire TV and Fire tablets. This new version is based on Android 7.1.2, which was the last version of Android 7 to be released before this year’s launch of Android 8 / Oreo a few weeks back. So although it definitely brings Fire OS more up to date than the previous Lollipop/Marshmallow-based version, it’s still about a year behind in terms of core Android features. It’s not yet clear when Fire OS 6 might come to Amazon’s tablet lineup, or which Android features it might bring with it, but it’s a good reminder that Amazon still bases some of its most important products on a proprietary flavor of Android, yet another front in the coopetition between Google and Amazon.
via Android Police
Amazon’s Next Fire TV Hardware Leaks, Will Have Alexa Support Even When TV is Off (Sep 11, 2017)
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Roku Leads US Streaming TV Box Market, Apple TV in 4th Place, Says eMarketer (Jul 26, 2017)
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