Amazon to Discontinue Fire Tablets Due to Lack of Customer Demand

In a recent interview, Amazon’s head of consumer electronics, Panos Panay, revealed that the company plans to retire the Fire brand in favor of a new line of Alexa Tablets. These upcoming devices will run on standard Android, granting users full access to the Play Store, a feature that was missing from Fire tablets. Previously, services like Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, and Google Drive were only accessible through a web browser on Fire tablets, as the official Google apps were absent from the Amazon Appstore.

Panay noted that the Fire tablet line “wasn’t giving customers what they were asking for,” which seems to include better access to Google services, improved hardware quality, and a reduction in intrusive advertising on the lock screen. While Amazon will continue to provide security updates for existing Fire tablets, Panay indicated that there won’t be any new hardware updates for that line. He also mentioned that more hardware announcements are on the horizon for the fall, but don’t anticipate an Amazon-branded computer or laptop.