Amazon to phase out Fire tablets in favor of Alexa Tablets running Android
Panos Panay told Bloomberg that Amazon will retire the Fire tablet brand and move to Alexa Tablets with standard Android and full Google Play access, while keeping security updates for existing devices.
The tablets that replace it run standard Android rather than Amazon's custom Fire OS, and they carry full access to the Google Play Store, which Fire tablets never offered. On Fire tablets, Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, Google Drive and other Google services could be reached only through a web browser, and the official Google apps were not carried in the Amazon Appstore. The Verge reported that what customers had been asking for appears to be access to Google services, higher-quality hardware and less intrusive advertising on the lock screen.
Panay's confirmation means the Fire tablet line will get no further hardware refreshes, though Amazon will continue to provide security updates for the devices already sold. "We won't leave any customer behind," he told Bloomberg.
The executive also said Amazon has more hardware announcements coming throughout the fall, but he ruled out one product category: an Amazon-branded computer or laptop is not in the works.
The move retires a tablet brand built on Amazon's own operating system and app store, and replaces it with hardware that depends on Google's software and services instead. Amazon has not given a date for the transition or said which Fire models will be affected beyond the pledge to keep supporting existing owners.