Fire TV app development: one store, two operating systems.
A Fire TV app used to be easy to describe: an Android app with a remote-friendly interface, submitted to the Amazon Appstore instead of Google Play. Since September 2025 that is only most of the story. Amazon now ships two operating systems on Fire TV hardware. Fire OS is a fork of Android. Vega OS is not Android at all, and Amazon lists no Android level for the devices that run it, so a Fire OS build is not something you can assume carries over. If you have done cross-platform app development for phones, the tools will look familiar, because the React Native path Amazon documents for Fire TV is the same framework with a fork that adds focus handling for a D-pad. What changes is the job: the app has to work from ten feet away, with five buttons, and pass a published list of checks before it goes live.
This guide covers what runs on each Fire TV device, the three build paths Amazon supports plus the Vega path, what the app has to do to be usable on a television, what Amazon tests before it publishes an app for Fire TV, the submission steps, what it costs, and the thing many people searching for an app for Amazon Fire TV actually want, which is the phone app.
The short version
Android for most devices, React Native if you want both.
A Fire TV app is an Android build, an APK or an app bundle, made for Fire OS on every Fire TV sold before late 2025 and most sold since. The Fire TV Stick 4K Select and the 2026 Fire TV Stick HD run Vega OS instead, a Linux-based system whose app paths are React Native for Vega and a web view. Whichever you build, Amazon judges it on the same things: a 1080p layout you can read from ten feet, complete navigation with the remote's directional buttons, almost no typing, a Back button that never crashes the app, and a listing with the assets Amazon asks for. The developer account is free.
The two operating systems
What actually runs on a Fire TV.
Amazon's own description is the place to start: "Fire OS is the operating system that runs Amazon's Fire TV and tablets. Fire OS is a fork of Android, so if your app runs on Android, it will most likely run on Amazon's Fire devices too." The versions map directly onto Android releases. Fire OS 8 is based on Android 10 and 11, Fire OS 14 on Android 12 through 14, and Fire OS 16 on Android 15 and 16. The main difference is services: instead of Google's services for payments, location, messaging and app distribution, Fire OS uses Amazon's, and the store is the Amazon Appstore rather than Google Play. Read Amazon's Fire OS overview.
The complication arrived on 30 September 2025, when Amazon announced the Fire TV Stick 4K Select as "our most affordable 4K streaming stick and first to run Vega OS". Vega is built on Linux components, not Android, and Amazon's answer to whether Fire OS apps are going away was a flat no: it continues to launch new features and devices on Fire OS. Read the Vega announcement. So the field now looks like this:
| Device | Operating system | Android base |
|---|---|---|
| Fire TV Stick 4K Select (2025) | Vega OS 1.1 | None, not Android |
| Fire TV Stick HD (2026) | Vega OS 1.1 | None, not Android |
| Fire TV Stick 4K Plus (2025) | Fire OS 8 | Android 11, API level 30 |
| Fire TV Stick 4K Max, 2nd gen (2023) | Fire OS 8 | Android 11, API level 30 |
| Fire TV Stick 4K, 2nd gen (2023) | Fire OS 8 | Android 11, API level 30 |
| Fire TV Omni QLED Series (2025) | Fire OS 8 | Android 11, API level 30 |
| Fire TV Stick HD (2024) | Fire OS 7 | Android 9, API level 28 |
| Fire TV Cube, 3rd gen (2022) | Fire OS 7 | Android 9, API level 28 |
| Hisense U7 Fire TV (2026) | Fire OS 14 | Android 14, API level 34 |
Rows from Amazon's Fire OS overview, updated 20 May 2026, which lists no Android level for the two Vega devices. The full table runs to more than 80 devices, many of them Fire TV Edition televisions from Hisense, TCL, Panasonic and others; Fire OS 7 is the single most common version, and only two devices run Vega OS.
It helps to see where Fire TV sits among the TV platforms. Roku is the far end: roku app development uses BrightScript and SceneGraph, languages that exist nowhere else, so nothing from a phone project carries over. Fire OS is the near end, since Android code carries over almost untouched. Vega sits in between: React Native and web code carry over, Kotlin does not. The same shape, a familiar build wrapped in a stricter interface contract set by the platform, is what you meet in an android auto app, where the scarce resource is a driver's attention instead of a viewer's distance from the screen.
Build paths
Three ways to build an app for Fire TV, and a fourth for Vega.
Amazon's getting-started page, updated 20 May 2026, puts it in one sentence: "Fire TV supports Android apps, HTML5 web apps, and React Native apps." Each is a documented route with its own tutorial, and the Vega SDK adds a fourth for the new sticks.
Android, with Android Studio
The same tools, IDEs and APIs you already use for Android. Porting an existing app is mostly a matter of replacing Google services with Amazon equivalents, adding the TV launcher entry to the manifest, and using the Appstore SDK if you sell anything inside the app.
HTML5 web app
For web teams. Amazon supports HTML5 web apps on Fire TV directly, with its own getting-started guide. The layout, the focus handling and the player all live in the web code.
React Native, with react-native-tvos
Amazon points React Native developers at react-native-tvos, an open-source fork "specifically tailored to making existing React Native apps work on TV", which adds focus management and remote-aware touchables. New apps can use Expo. The result is still an Android build you install over adb.
React Native for Vega, or Vega WebView
For the Fire TV Stick 4K Select and the 2026 Fire TV Stick HD. React Native developers build with React Native for Vega and Amazon's @amazon-devices libraries, web developers wrap their app in Vega WebView, and native code goes in as C++ through React Native turbo modules.
| Path | Fire OS devices | Vega OS devices | Tooling | Fits when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Android app (Kotlin or Java) | Yes | No documented path | Android Studio, adb, the Appstore SDK for in-app purchases | You already have an Android app to port |
| HTML5 web app | Yes | Yes, through Vega WebView | Your existing web stack | The product is a website or a web video player today |
| React Native | Yes, with react-native-tvos; Expo for new apps | Yes, with React Native for Vega | Node, Android Studio, and the Vega SDK for Vega devices | You want one codebase that also covers the phone app |
Try it
Which Fire TV build path fits?
Tick whatever is true. The suggestion follows Amazon's own documented paths, nothing more exotic than that.
Suggested path
Tick a statement above to see which of Amazon's paths fits.
The job
What a Fire TV app has to do from ten feet away.
Amazon's Fire TV design guidelines call these ten-foot interfaces, and its test criteria, updated 18 September 2026, are written from that distance. Strip the document down and the app has four jobs that a phone app never had.
Be readable at 1080p from across a room
Design for 1920 x 1080. Amazon's testers judge whether text and UI elements can be read from approximately ten feet, which rules out phone type sizes and dense lists.
Work with five buttons and one hand
Every actionable element has to be reachable with up, down, left and right, with a visible focus state, and Select has to do the obvious thing to whatever is highlighted. Amazon's criteria say the app must be usable with only one hand and must not need motion events or rapid input.
Survive the remote's system keys
Back must never force close the app or trap the viewer in a loop. Home must exit within two seconds and save state in onPause on the way out. A press of the microphone button must not break anything, and the media keys should control playback and nothing else.
Stay small and fast
Two gigabytes or less is Amazon's recommendation, counting anything the app downloads on first launch; near or above four gigabytes it may not install. Installation should take no more than fifteen seconds, anything that loads longer than fifteen seconds needs a loading message, and the frame rate should not drop below 25 fps for long.
Before you touch the manifest
The decisions that decide whether the port is a week or a quarter are product decisions, not code. Settle these on paper first:
- Every screen has one obvious focused element, and focus never disappears off the edge of a list
- Search is voice or a short field, not a form
- Sign-in fits in a pairing code or a link on the phone, not a password typed with a D-pad
- Nothing important sits at the outer edge of the screen, where a television may crop it
- Google Play services are gone: sign-in, payments and push have Amazon or third-party replacements
- The manifest declares the TV launcher entry, a banner for the home screen, and that a touchscreen is not required
Amazon's test criteria
What Amazon checks before an app for Fire TV goes live.
Amazon publishes the test cases its team runs, and a Fire TV submission is tested against them before it is published. The numbers below are from that document as of 18 September 2026; the third column is where apps ported from a phone tend to fail.
| Check | Amazon's bar | Where ports fail |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | Designed to be displayed at 1080p, 1920 x 1080 px | Phone layouts scaled up, with type sized for a screen in your hand |
| Readability | Text and UI elements readable from approximately 10 feet away | Dense lists, small captions, low-contrast metadata |
| Remote navigation | A simple UI navigable with up, down, left, right; usable with one hand; no motion events or rapid input | Controls that only respond to touch, swipe or long press |
| Text entry | Limited; large amounts of text entry hinder the user experience | A sign-up form or a search box as the first screen |
| App size | 2 GB or less recommended, including first-launch downloads; near or above 4 GB it may not install | Bundled video and image assets |
| Install time | Ideally no more than 15 seconds | Unused resources left in the package |
| Loading | A loading message whenever loading takes longer than 15 seconds | A blank screen while the catalog fetches |
| Exit on Home | No more than 2 seconds, with state preserved in onPause | Blocking work on the way out |
| Frame rate | Should not drop below 25 fps for an extended period; 55 to 60 fps recommended | Long image rows that are not recycled |
| Back button | Must not force close the app or enter an infinite loop within the UI | Custom back handling that traps the viewer on one screen |
Qualifications and timings from Amazon's test criteria for Appstore apps, updated 18 September 2026. The same document covers game controllers, 4K and HDR playback, and audio focus for media apps.
Submitting
Getting a Fire TV app into the Amazon Appstore, step by step.
The order matters less than on Apple's side: the account is free, the console accepts a binary as soon as you have one, and the testing happens after you submit rather than before you can start.
- 1
Create an Amazon developer account
It is free. Choose a sole proprietorship account as an individual or a business account for a company, and add tax and payment details only if the app will earn money.
- 2
Build the right package
For Fire OS devices, an APK or an Android App Bundle with 64-bit support; Amazon removes your signature and re-signs the app with one unique to you. For Vega devices, the package the Vega SDK produces.
- 3
Test on a real Fire TV over adb
Enable ADB debugging on the device, install the build from your machine, and run the remote tests yourself: Back from every screen, Home in the middle of playback, the microphone button, and a ten to fifteen minute run-through using nothing but the remote, which is what Amazon's testers do.
- 4
Prepare the listing
Amazon's Appstore details page, updated 6 January 2026, asks for two icons, between three and ten screenshots, and for Fire TV a 1920 x 1080 background image, plus a title, short and long descriptions, feature bullets and privacy labels describing what the app collects.
- 5
Target the right devices
For Fire OS, the manifest says which devices the app supports, and the console asks again when you submit. A TV-only app should not be offered to Fire tablets.
- 6
Submit, then fix what the testers find
Amazon tests the binary against the criteria above before it goes live. A failure comes back naming the test; fix it, rebuild, and resubmit.
What it costs
The store is free to enter.
Amazon's developer portal, checked on 21 September 2026, says "Registration is easy and free", and that developers earning less than 1 million US dollars a year automatically receive an 80/20 revenue share. So the platform fees are zero, and what you actually pay for is everything around the binary. See the Amazon Appstore developer portal.
A device to test on
A Fire OS stick or television for Fire OS builds, and a Fire TV Stick 4K Select for Vega, or the Vega Virtual Device that ships with the SDK.
The build
Developer time, or an agency, for the TV interface, the remote handling, the Amazon service swaps and the store listing.
The phone side
Most TV products need a companion app for sign-in and pairing. That is a separate build with its own store account and fees.
The backend
Accounts, the catalog or schedule, playback rights, and anything the TV app has to check before it shows a screen.
The phone app
The Amazon Fire TV phone app is not a Fire TV app.
Searches for a fire app for tv, an app for fire tv, or an amazon fire tv phone app usually mean one of two things: an app you want to build for the device, or Amazon's own companion app for iPhone and Android, the app Amazon Fire TV owners most often already have on their phones. That companion app turns the phone into a remote with a real keyboard, adds voice search, lets you browse and launch titles on the big screen, and sets up new Fire TV devices. It needs an Amazon account and the same Wi-Fi network as the TV. If typing on the remote is the problem, that app is the fix, and you install it from your phone's app store rather than from the Fire TV.
It is also a useful model if you are building a Fire TV product, because it shows what belongs on the phone. The ten-foot rules push typing, sign-up, payment details and pairing off the television, which is why most TV apps ship with a companion app that handles them. That phone app is a normal mobile build. Newly, for example, builds it as a React Native and Expo project, uploads the iOS build to App Store Connect through its Ship to TestFlight card, and lets you download the code; it does not produce Android release builds on v2, so the Fire TV package itself still needs a developer with Android Studio or the Vega SDK.
When to build your own
When an off-the-shelf TV platform does not fit.
White-label video platforms will generate a Fire TV app from a template: a catalog, a player, subscriptions, and often the store submission itself. If the product is a video library, that is usually the right buy. The fit breaks when the TV app is a companion to something else: a gym's class schedule with a live leaderboard, a church livestream with a giving link, a restaurant's menu board, a school's announcement loop. The template has no field for the thing your process is about, and bending it costs more than starting clean.
Teams in that position build their own, and the phone half is where an AI app builder earns its place. Describe the companion app, the sign-in, the pairing code, the schedule editor that feeds the TV, and Newly builds and ships it for $25 a month, with the backend the TV app reads from. The Fire OS package is standard Android TV work; if you are choosing tools for that half, our guide to Android app makers covers which of them produce a signed release build at all.
Sources
Where the specifics came from.
Every number on this page comes from Amazon's own developer documentation, read on 21 September 2026:
FAQ
Fire TV apps, answered.
On Fire OS devices, which is every Fire TV sold before late 2025 and most sold since, yes. Amazon describes Fire OS as a fork of Android, and a Fire TV app is an APK or Android App Bundle submitted to the Amazon Appstore instead of Google Play. Two things change: Google services are not available, so payments, sign-in and messaging use Amazon or third-party equivalents, and the interface has to work with a remote from ten feet away. The Fire TV Stick 4K Select and the 2026 Fire TV Stick HD run Vega OS, which is not Android, and need a separate build.
Building the phone side of your Fire TV product?
The TV app still needs Android Studio or the Vega SDK. The companion app does not. See what real apps built with Newly look like before you scope the mobile half of the project.