Sandeep Gupta, the Vice President and General Manager of Fire TV, is leaving Amazon after 10 years to join Universal Audio as Chief Operating Officer. He has been critical in shaping Fire TVs into the great line of streaming devices they are today, from the very beginning. There were very few people that I met during my time on the Fire TV team at Amazon that I respected more than Sandeep and he will surely be missed.
When Marc Whitten, the former VP of Entertainment Devices at Amazon (i.e., Fire TV, Fire Tablet, Kindle, Luna, Appstore, and more) left Amazon earlier this year, I fully expected Sandeep Gupta to move up and take over his role. I certainly didn’t know anyone better suited to take over all of those devices, but Amazon is a massive company with many more executives to tap for roles than I ever met, so the position went to Daniel Rausch, who was a VP on the Alexa team. Tapas Roy, also a VP from the Alexa team, is taking over Sandeep Gupta’s position as VP of Fire TV, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Since the start of this year, the two people with the most influence over Fire TV products, Marc Whitten and Sandeep Gupta, have left Amazon. It’s certainly not unusual for roles like these to change at Amazon, but it’s noteworthy for two major VP positions related to a single product to change in the same year. That said, I’m sure Daniel Rausch and Tapas Roy will do a fine job leading the Fire TV team moving forward.
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Welp? Just as long as the Fire TV team implements AirPlay 2 and Homekit across every Stick, Cube and OMNI TV shipped…and then adds Bluetooth receiver capabilities to the entire Fire TV platform (to send audio from phone/tablet over to stick/cube using Sony’s high-quality LDAC codec) and then the Fire TV teams works with the Fire Tablet team to create a new screen mirroring protocol to replace Mira-Cast since they’re not certifying their Fire Tablets anymore, while shipping the Fire TV devices with Mira-Cast for some weird reason??? Oh? And overhauls Alexa-cast so that it’s not bound to a single Amazon account. (Which is the weirdest casting design choice and implementation I’ve ever seen???) Then I think we’ll be okay with this transition… The entire point of the Fire TV and most smart TV platforms for me? Is seamless multi-option device media/screen casting and smart-home integration and that is where Amazon and Google’s focuses should be too. Smart garage door opens? There should be a notification on my Fire TV screen alerting me. Doorbell rings? Notifications or live-video streams.
You should check out the new video on the OMNI series Fire TV by Linus Tech Tips.
https://youtu.be/gGHwYMwXX88
I’d prefer James to have done the review over Linus. Boy is fine AF! But yes, I already have the 43” model. So far so good, but needing HomeKit for it.
Homekit was DOA from the start. I agree tho they should have more popup options for their actually successful protocols like ring/blink and other supported options like arlo, eufy, wyze etc. There is a way i guess to do it but its not straight forward
Damn, I thought I knew my fiestick’s. You should WORK THERE. I have been using fire sticks since first edition with the very small remote. I have had no problems 4 that long. Now windows store Kodi app not working. Download through it Kodi .tv)download doesn’t work either. I’m pissed due to just getting AIO touchscreen Dell desktop. I WAS looking forward to using new touchscreen builds, NOW I Can’t. Why, to NOW, out of the blue it happens? Something is NOT RIGHT IN FIRESTICK/KODI-VILLE! IF I’M NOT MISTAKEN TECHNOLOGY SUPPOSED TO ADVANCE? WTF? 19.3/18.9, no doesn’t matter, if neither are working, something s WRONG @ AMAZON!!!
Elias,
Maybe this shuffle will allow new folks in that are not so happy with the ability of Fire devices to sideload unverified apps, and they will change that.
And maybe this change will be implemented in a future Firestick update, as some have warned may be coming.
Any thoughts??
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Elias do you have any thoughts Pro / Con on the blocking of FireStick OS updates as shown on a certain site??