Amazon is planning a great change in its Fire tablet line after years of increasing complaints from consumers and application developers about the company’s local operating system.
As part of an internally known project as Kittyhawk, Amazon plans to launch a high -end tablet as soon as next year offered by the Android operating system software for the first time, according to six people familiar with the matter. Since the introduction of the Fire tablet in 2011, Amazon has used what is known as a “bifurcated” version of Android with personalized modifications that make it function as a unique operating system.
Amazon has long sought to undermine hardware rivals with cheap tablets and other devices that serve as a door to the digital content of the company, such as electronic books, videos and music. The devices have generally sold at the cost of manufacture or near it. But the focus on simplicity has stopped sales, particularly among consumers looking for higher performance devices.
The project of several years to change to Android marks a philosophical change for the online retail giant, which has avoided operating systems and third -party software in favor of theirs. As a result, Amazon has offered its own application store that requires developers to make separate versions of their Applications for Fire tablets, which limits the variety of the store.
If Kittyhawk succeeds, Fire tablets could be more desirable for consumers who yearn for compatibility with other Android devices, people said. They warned that Kittyhawk could be delayed or canceled for financial or other concerns.
Amazon refused to comment, saying that it does not respond to rumors or speculation.
“Consumers have always expressed concern for not having access to the latest versions of Android, not having access to some of their applications because Amazon used their own store,” said JITESH Ubrani, a researcher at Ti IDC advice firm. “It has meant more work for developers at this time of applications or services in large part.”
You may be interested: Nordic and Belgian postal operators Pausan shipments to the US after the end of tariff relief
Amazon plans to leave your own software to give way to Android in the new version of its Fire tablet
Ubrani said that, however, Amazon has sold many millions of tablets. Amazon has lost the profits of the devices themselves in favor of earning money with the sale of their associated services, such as streaming films. But these economic devices generally come with commitments such as lower screen quality or battery life compared to the most expensive options.
Amazon is the fourth largest seller of tablets in the world, with 8% of the market, just behind Lenovo with 8.2%, according to IDC data of the second quarter. Apple and Samsung were market leaders with 33.1% and 18.7%, respectively.
The first Android Tablet of Amazon, scheduled for next year, will be more expensive than the current models, people said. One of them said that Amazon had discussed a price of $ 400, almost twice the cost of its current high -end 230 dollar Fire Max 11 table. The iPads, in comparison, range between $ 350 and $ 1,200. Reuters could not know additional specifications for the Amazon tablet, such as the size of the screen and the quality of the speakers or the memory capacity.
Historically, Amazon has avoided the use of software or other third -party products, preferring to develop services internally or, except that, acquire a competitor. The Smart Telephone Fire Phone defended by the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and launched in 2014 failed to win the buyers partly due to their dependence on Fire OS, as well as at its high price. Amazon canceled the device and took a amortization of 170 million dollars.
But Seattle’s retailer has more recently shown his willingness to use the services of his rivals, particularly through his investment in the Startup Anthropic, whose Claude artificial intelligence software is the main basis of the Amazon Alexa + voice assistant and a chatbot used by employees known as CEDric.
The new Fire tablet, said people, will use the open source version of Android, which means that it does not require direct coordination with Google and can be customized.
Amazon plans to launch some lower price tablets with its Vega operating system based on Linux now on some Fire TV devices, some of the people said. The complete list of tablets will eventually be driven by an Android version, people said.
The internal code name of the Kittyhawk Fire Project seems to derive from the city of North Carolina near where the Wright brothers made the first motor flight in 1903. But it is also the name of a failed startup of flying cars backed by Google co -founder, Larry Page, which burned hundreds of millions in cash. Amazon refused to discuss the meaning behind the name of his Kittyhawk project.
With Reuters information.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and do not miss our content
