Hi there! My name is Janko Roettgers, and this is Lowpass. This week: How Amazon wants to make up for missing apps on its new Vega OS, and why OpenAI’s new Sora app looks familiar.

Amazon is using cloud streaming to get Vega OS off the ground

Vega OS is finally here: On Tuesday, Amazon officially unveiled its new, custom-built Vega entertainment devices operating system with the launch of the Fire TV Stick 4K Select, a new streaming stick that comes with Vega preinstalled.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Select was announced alongside multiple new Fire TVs, which all still run Amazon’s forked version of Android. Supporting both platforms can be a headache for developers; I’m hearing that some major publishers have been hesitant to throw their support behind Vega for that very reason.

However, Amazon has a plan to ensure that the new 4K Select stick will launch with most of the apps customers expect from such hardware when it goes on sale later this month: It will simply run Android versions of popular apps that haven’t been ported to Vega yet in the cloud, and stream them to the Select stick.

“Select developers will have their existing apps cloud streamed while they develop a version of their app for Vega,” confirms Amazon spokesperson Melanie Garvey.

Amazon began publishing Vega OS docs for developers Tuesday. Most documents focus on bringing apps to Vega, which is Linux-based and uses React Native as its default app development framework. However, among the cache are also a few pages outlining the company’s plan B, which is officially known as the Amazon Cloud App Program.

“Amazon cloud app streaming allows the deployment of existing Fire TV apps to customers on Vega OS Fire TV devices,” one of those documents states. “If your app runs on a Fire TV Stick 4K Max and meets [certain prerequisites], it can run on a Vega OS Fire TV device using cloud app streaming.”