Amazon has announced the next generation of Fire OS which is the operation system that powers their various Fire devices, including the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. The new version, dubbed Fire OS 5, is based on Android 5 Lollipop, which is the latest version of Android. Starting today, developers may sign up for early access to the new OS. The developer preview is currently only available for the Fire HD 6 and Fire HD 7 tablets. Amazon has also announced a limited time offer which gives developers $50 off up to two Fire HD 7 tablets. With the Fire HD 7 currently on sale for $99, that’s a heck of a deal if the two promotions overlap.
“…Fire OS 5, the next generation Android-based operating system that powers Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire phone devices.” -Amazon
Amazon says the new operating system will be “launched later this year” but has not given specifics as to which devices will receive the new OS. They did, thankfully, include the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick when listing the devices that will run Fire OS 5. The Fire TV and Fire TV Stick both use, and have always used, Fire OS 3, which is based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Other Fire devices have moved on to Fire OS 4, which has caused a bit of concern that the current generation of Fire TV devices would remain on the older platform indefinitely. The Fire TV app library would eventually begin to suffer from using an older platform because app developers would not have access to capabilities found in newer versions of Android. Assuming this news means the current generation of Fire TV devices will eventually be updated to Fire OS 5, you can be confident your Fire TV device will remain compatible with all the best apps in the foreseeable future.
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Wooo hooo! This is great and hopefully will stop the constant complaining about the OS being out of date. Unless of course they don’t make it available to the current FireTV when the release a new one. But that would just be….evil.
If it runs L, we should be able to sideload the Android TV launcher. Am I right?
In theory yes, it should work, I have the Android TV YouTube sideloaded and it works great, but the Leanback Launcher may require Google Play services…
Does this mean when it does get to fire TV os5 it gives a chance be able to be rooted?
It is true that Amazon has not mentioned which FireTV devices will get it first the FireOS-5, but something is happening and at least Amazon has begun to understand that it has to develop and update the FireTV!!!
This is great news and hopefully will stop the constant complaining, about the FireOS of the Amazon-FireTV of being out of date!!
I tried to get one and I found this message:
Developer Device Discount: $50 Off a Fire HD 7 Tablet on Amazon.com
All promotional codes have been claimed for this offer.
I just deleted several comments. Arguing is fine, but please keep the discussion civil. If your comment was deleted, it doesn’t mean it was necessarily one of the bad ones. It was just easier to delete entire threads. My apologies to those who had to read the garbage. I’ll be working to implement a better comment/forum system soon.
I’ll take responsibility. Objectively I don’t think mine was the most immature but definetly a stupid reply and unnecessary. I come here daily to read your stuff and don’t want to waste your time needing to clean up after idiots (myself included.)
I’m looking forward to this.
So does this mean when we get update for fire tv will there be a chance to update
Hope this will fix the 24p issue…
Any chance we get mpeg2 with this update? Android M preview has it for nexus. Would be nice if my hdhomerun devices would work with hardware decoding.
I wonder if Amazon will update the fire tv hardware to go with the Fire OS 5 update?
Hope so they are falling behind no 4k no hevc encoding and the new amlogics s905 coming out will be more powerful then the chip in the current fire and the next Intel boxes will be too.
Kodi working and sideloading still working?
I’d like to know if you can still sideload kodi? Thanks