Amazon announces Vega OS for TV, a Linux-based OS that doesn’t support sideloading

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Amazon has announced Vega OS for its Fire TVs. It’s a Linux-based OS that replaces the old Android-based Fire OS.
Vega OS is one of Amazon’s worst-kept secrets, it has been rumored for a long time. But, now it’s finally official.
That said, Amazon really didn’t explain much about Vega, except for saying it supports “your favorite streaming services, and will soon support Xbox Gaming, Luna, and Alexa+.” No screenshots, videos, nothing was shared. From the above image, it does seem the home screen experience remains identical to Fire OS.
Despite launching Vega OS, Amazon says Fire OS will continue to be available on new devices. What does that mean? Well, Vega is currently only available for the new Fire TV 4K Select, and not the other TVs that Amazon announced yesterday. Amazon did highlight Vega by saying apps launch remarkably fast, and the performance of the new operating system is responsive and highly efficient. Well, that’s one way to hype it up.

Another thing that’s interesting is that the new Fire TV Stick 4K has only 1GB of RAM. As AFTVNews reports, this is literally half the amount of memory its predecessor had. It also highlights how memory intensive Android-based Fire OS was, as opposed to a lightweight Linux OS.

But there’s a catch, a big one. Amazon’s listing for its new Fire TV Stick 4K Select says “For enhanced security, only apps from the Amazon Appstore are available for download.” That’s just great, no SmartTube for YouTube. Oh wait, that’s an Android app, shoot! It looks like most apps will need to be rewritten to support Vega OS. And if Fire OS continues to exist, developers will need to maintain an Android version of their app too.Ā  That’s probably not a huge deal, considering that there are tons of Android TVs out there. Still, maintaining two versions can be quite a burden.
Google is killing sideloading on Android, Amazon is doing the same on Fire TVs. So much for freedom of choice.
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