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by WorldMaker 3029 days ago
> Personally, I think they should have gone with AOSP

It's certainly complex to armchair quarterback the idea, but I don't think Nokia would have had any more luck than Amazon's FireOS (or the failed/doomed commercial attempt at Cyanogen, for that matter) if they had attempted that. AOSP has long been a seemingly open carrot with far too many hidden and closed sticks in Google's control.
1 comments
kllrnohj 3029 days ago
Do you mean the FirePhone specifically?

FireOS is still used on the Fire tablets, which appear to be one of the most successful non-Apple tablet around. At least successful enough for it to be on its 7th generation with yearly refreshes, anyway. Similarly FireOS continues to mostly track AOSP, with the Android 7.1-based FireOS 6 being the latest release.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame FirePhone's failings on FireOS vs. Google given the number of gimmicks FirePhone tried to do, like the weird 4 front-facing cameras doing pretend-depth on the UI. I think would be hard to definitively state FirePhone failed purely because of FireOS not being Google-certified. FireOS probably didn't help, sure, but I don't think it was FirePhone's exclusive failure point, either.

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WorldMaker 3028 days ago
I include the Fire tablets in my assessment of AOSP: the app stores have diverged to the point where you increasingly often need different APKs for FireOS and Google Play, and that divergence will continue to grow as Google continues to expand the proprietary Play API surfaces.

Even before Google started moving most API investment out of AOSP and into Google Play directly, FireOS has never felt like a "real" Android. I'd wager most of its tablet users don't even realize the connection to Android. At this point, how much does Amazon really benefit from AOSP that aren't already handling themselves?

This is entirely my own supposition, but based on what I've seen of the entirely different apps platform and ecosystem for the Echo devices, especially the Echo Show "tablet", and how well it is currently doing in the market, it is very easy for me to imagine Amazon will also be getting out of the AOSP game eventually on its Fire tablets/sticks as well. It's easy to imagine Amazon would be happier to have an ecosystem it more directly owns (and doesn't have to keep fighting a cold war with Google Play).

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gaul 3028 days ago
Only the 3rd generation Fire TV Stick runs Fire OS 6, based on Android 7.1. The latest Fire tablet runs Fire OS 5.6, based on Android 5.1:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_OS#List_of_Fire_OS_versio...

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