Amazon is phasing out Fire tablets because they weren’t ‘giving customers what they asked for’

In an interview with BloombergAmazon’s head of consumer electronics, Panos Panay, has confirmed that the company will phase out the Fire brand in favor of Alexa tablets.

The new range runs Android correctly, instead of the custom Fire OS, and has full access to the Play Store, which was not available on Fire tablets. To make matters worse, Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube, Google Drive, and other services were only available through the Fire tablets’ browser; Official Google apps were not available on the Amazon Appstore.

The Fire tablet line “didn’t give customers what they were asking for,” Panay told Bloomberg, which appears to be access to Google services, higher-quality hardware and less in-your-face advertising on the lock screen. Amazon will still provide security updates for Fire tablets. “We will not leave any customer behind,” Panay said. But don’t expect any hardware updates.

Panay also said Amazon will make other hardware announcements throughout the fall, but don’t expect an Amazon-branded computer or laptop.