September has been a big month for announcements: brand-new tablet hardware, new Alexa-enabled devices, and new developer features for Alexa. On top of everything else, we are also excited to announce the newest addition to the Fire TV family of devices.
“We haven’t stopped innovating since we launched the first Fire TV in 2014,” says Marc Whitten, Vice President, Amazon Fire TV. Back then, we solved the right problem at the right time—simplify streaming media and enable access to content—with an app interface that was powerful, extensible, and intuitive. Ever since, we’ve worked hard to keep the improvements coming, striving to provide a great user experience… and a great developer experience.
Experience true-to-life picture
The newest Amazon Fire TV is the first Fire TV to support 4K Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range (HDR) and packs a lot of punch into its portable form factor design. Your apps and games will pop with true-to-life picture quality—with vivid colors and 60 fps—and sound with support for Dolby Atmos audio.
Fire TV provides your app with the power it needs to perform its best and truly engage your customers. It’s smooth and responsive because it sports a 1.5 GHz quad-core processor attached to 2GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. Dual-band, 802.11ac Wi-Fi or the optional Amazon Ethernet Adapter provide your app with the bandwidth to ensure the best possible streaming experience.
Featuring Fire OS 6
The all-new Amazon Fire TV also marks the debut of Fire OS 6. Based on Android Nougat (Android 7.1.2, level 25), Fire OS 6 includes many new features and improvements. Since the underlying version of Android has changed from previous Fire TV devices, however, your existing Fire TV app or game may require minor updates to maintain compatibility with Fire OS 6 and our all-new Fire TV. For more information on preparing your app for Fire OS 6, check out our documentation.
Developers are users, too
Even if you don’t develop apps for Fire TV (yet!), you may just fall in love with it as your day-to-day streaming media device. Like Fire TV Stick, Fire TV is designed to fit discreetly behind your television. It’s particularly handy if you travel since it moves effortlessly between home and hotel; access your streaming media and channels from anywhere.
With Alexa, Fire TV can control smart home enabled lights, thermostats, and other compatible devices. Plus, play music, view camera feeds on your TV, check the weather, and more.
Starting today, smart home camera support is available on all Fire TV devices and second generation Fire TV Stick devices in the U.S. You can now use your Fire TV to view live video feeds via Alexa from your compatible smart home cameras simply by saying, “Alexa, show the nursery camera.”
Get a development device (or just one for yourself)
Amazon Fire TV is available for pre-order on Amazon in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. If you create Android apps, this is a great opportunity to get a powerful development streaming media device—though I suspect you’ll end up using it for a lot more than just creating apps.
Start developing
Amazon offers several tools to help you accelerate development for streaming media apps. Web App Starter Kit for Fire TV (WASK) is a full-featured customizable HTML5 web app template designed for quickly creating dynamic media apps suited for the 10-foot experience. Fire App Builder provides a Java-based framework that you can use to easily and quickly build streaming media Android apps for Amazon Fire TV. Finally, Amazon Creator is a simple-to-use web tool that allows you to create a Fire TV app in minutes, with no coding required.
-peter (@peterdotgames)
Source: Alexa