Today’s question comes from Darren, who asks, “The new Amazon Fire TV 4K Select streaming stick is coming out soon, but from what I’ve read, some apps might not support it. Will Tablo?”
At a recent hardware event, Amazon announced a new Fire TV streaming device called the Amazon Fire TV 4K Select. It is currently available for pre-order and will be shipping mid-October.
Before you hit ‘add to cart’, you should know that Tablo and many other apps, will not be available on the Fire TV 4K Select at launch.
That’s because it runs a completely different operating system than previous Fire TV devices and this has wide-ranging impacts.
A Fundamentally Different Device
All Amazon Fire TV devices on the market today run an Android-based operating system called Fire OS. For the new Amazon Fire TV 4K Select streaming device, Amazon switched to a brand-new Linux-based operating system dubbed Vega.
And because the operating system was changed, a new set of tools and components for building apps, called React Native, was needed.
Those structural changes mean that all existing Amazon Fire TV apps aren’t compatible.
The Path Forward
Creating apps for a new operating system, running on new hardware and using new tools and components takes time and a lot of testing.
That’s why only big companies with large engineering teams like Netflix were able to meet the tight timelines required to get Vega-compatible apps ready for the new Fire TV Stick’s launch.
It’s anticipated that additional streaming apps will become available over the coming months. But more complex apps and those that stream video in distinctive formats, such as Tablo with over-the-air TV, will require more time and potentially updates to the Vega OS and React Native toolkits.
At this time, it’s difficult to estimate when a Tablo app might be available for the Amazon Fire TV 4K Select, but we have been working on it for a while now. Tablo will continue to support all other current Amazon Fire TV devices and smart TVs in the meantime.
Have a question about watching TV that you’d like answered? Send us a note and you may see your question on the Tablo blog and in an upcoming issue of our newsletter, Stay Tuned!
