Newsletter
Amazon’s Nougat-based Fire OS 6 is here and it’s got PiP mode, that is, if you’re running a Fire TV device that has Fire OS 6, as Amazon notes that this is one of the features that will be coming to Fire TV with this new version of the software. While Picture-in-Picture mode will be supported on Fire TV with Fire OS 6, these devices may not get multi-window as this wasn’t a feature mentioned in Amazon’s Developers blog post, despite multi-window being a feature that came along with Android Nougat when Google launched it. Also worth mentioning is that right now Amazon hasn’t mentioned anything about Fire OS 6 for its tablet devices.
Before those with a current Fire TV device get too excited about the notion of new software, Amazon notes that Fire OS 6 won’t be coming to existing Fire TV devices at this time. It doesn’t explicitly state that they will never get the update, so it’s entirely possible that the update will happen further in the future. As for other new features that will be coming with the software, in addition to the PiP mode, Fire OS 6 is also introducing a content recording feature for anyone who wants to record content similar to the way they would use a DVR device that was hooked up to their cable box. This will certainly be useful for anyone who uses Fire TV to watch live TV programming through any of the supported services. It’ll also be possible to pause, play, fast forward, and rewind live TV content, so if you don’t need to record something but you do have to get up in the middle of a live TV show, you can easily pause it or rewind it so you don’t miss anything. Much of the other changes are developer-focused, but even with the few that Amazon did mention that will be user-facing, it seems like newer Fire TV devices will be quite interesting.
As you can probably guess, this seems like perfect timing on Amazon’s part, having just recently announced new hardware at its event in Seattle earlier in the week, where it announced some new Fire TV products. Logically speaking, these are more than likely the devices Amazon is going to want to push Fire OS 6 with, though that kind of leaves customers in the lurch if they want the newer features sooner than later as it somewhat forces them to purchase the new device, and that’s assuming that Amazon ever does update existing devices, which there is no guarantee of at the moment. If you’ve yet to get a Fire TV product and are considering it, then it seems like Amazon’s new options will be the ones to go with.