Amazon last week announced a new Fire TV Stick HD streaming device that’s slimmer than its predecessors and draws power directly from the TV it’s stuck into, but it failed to mention one very important detail that has since emerged – users won’t be able to “sideload” apps onto the device.
Cord Cutters News was the first to report this salient piece of information. It spotted a sentence on the device’s product listing on Amazon.com, which states that “for enhanced security, this device prevents sideloading or installing apps from unknown sources. Only apps from the Amazon Appstore are available for download."
While Amazon says it’s trying to “enhance” security for its users, what it really means is that it is trying to prevent them from downloading any legally suspect third-party applications – namely those that show pirated content such as livestreamed sports.
The issue of apps that allow users to stream pirated content is a contentious one – there are millions of people globally who do this, likely because they can’t afford to pay for the official application’s subscription fees. From a legal perspective, Amazon is probably right to try and block these applications, but the method it’s using to do this will, unfortunately, prevent anyone who buys its latest streaming stick from customising or hacking the device in ways that are perfectly legal – such as custom launchers, local media streaming and smart home tools.
Amazon’s strategy to lock down its new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K is to run its own software platform, called Vega OS, instead of the customised version of Android that previously powered its Fire TV operating system. Amazon built Vega OS itself, and that means it has much more control over the software and what users can do with it.
We learned about Vega OS last year, but it wasn’t clear then how fast Amazon intended to roll out this new software, or which devices might be affected. While older Fire TV Sticks are extremely popular with users of pirated apps, it seems like that won’t be the case in future. We can expect all future Fire TV sticks to run Vega OS, which means they’ll also be prevented from sideloading. Doing this makes sense for Amazon, as it has come under a lot of fire in recent years for doing nothing to combat pirated streaming.
Amazon has made sure that all of the best known streaming apps, such as Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Apple TV and, of course, Amazon Prime Video work perfectly with Vega OS devices. But beyond those major content providers, users are likely to find their streaming app options rather limited.
