Amazon may abandon its Fire tablet software

Amazon could finally be ditching its proprietary software on Fire tablets, according to a report by Reuters. The company is reportedly prepping a higher-end tablet that'll run on Android. This device could come next year and will reportedly cost around $400.

Amazon's Fire tablet software is itself a heavily modified version of Android, but the upcoming tablet will reportedly use the actual OS. This is great news for those who want easy integration with other Android devices.

It's also great news for app developers. The primary downside of Fire OS is that it mandates the use of its own app store. The custom nature of the OS requires developers to make separate versions of apps for Amazon tablets. This has severely limited the store's variety, especially when compared to the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.

The downside to all of this is likely the aforementioned $400 price tag. Fire tablets are known for being inexpensive. The Fire Tablet 7 costs $60 and sales can bring that down even further. The company's most expensive tablet is currently the Fire Max 11, which costs $230.

Amazon has declined to comment on the matter and we don't have any information regarding specs of the upcoming tablet. Hopefully the price increase translates to much better internals.

This isn't the first time the company has given up on a product that used a proprietary operating system. The Fire Phone was released back in 2014 but failed to win over consumers. Amazon stopped selling the device in 2015.