Today, Xiaomi unveiled a trio of Amazon Fire TV smart TV models, marking the company’s debut on the market. In less than a month, the Fire TV platform has been adopted by a second Google partner for the Android TV OS.
FIRST FIRE TV MODELS ARE LAUNCHED BY XIAOMI Today, Xiaomi unveiled their new Fire TV lineup, the F2 series, which is only offered in the UK.
With selections at 43, 50, and 55 inches, this new collection of televisions is on the more economical end of the spectrum. All three of them are 4K, HDR10, and HDMI 2.1 compatible. Even the smallest model offers four HDMI ports, a frameless design, and a 60Hz refresh rate across the board. These will hardly impress anyone, but they do the job.
The major development is that they are Xiaomi’s first TVs equipped with Amazon Fire TV. This is the company’s first foray into another operating system after selling Android TV models, including in the UK , all around the world in the past. The Amazon Fire TV is still built on Android, but it has a very different user interface and relies on Amazon’s services and Appstore rather than Google’s.
The cheapest Xiaomi Fire TV model is $339.
Traditionally, Android TV partners have been prohibited from using Fire TV. This is a significant development because it is said that Google previously forbade its Android TV partners from using Amazon Fire TV. This was more of a side effect of Google’s Android partnership agreements than an intentional strategy. An agreement that, among other things, prohibits a company from deploying a forked version of Android that has been altered to the point that it lacks Google services and is essentially unrecognizable must be adopted before an Android partner may access the Google Play Store and other Google services.
Our first indication that Google has, in some way, relaxed its control over Android TV OS partners and let them to make Fire TV devices in addition to Android TV OS and Roku came from Hisense earlier this month. The fact that Xiaomi is releasing its first wave of Fire TV models only a few weeks after Hisense serves to support our assumptions that this is not a coincidence.
Google’s 9TO5 While Hisense paved the way, the entry of Xiaomi is particularly bad news for Google. Xiaomi is one of the most well-known companies in those nations, where the Android TV platform is well-established, particularly in Asia. Currently, the company’s Fire TV range is only available in the UK, but there’s no reason to think that won’t change in Asia. When that time comes, there is a good possibility that it will be poorly timed and ultimately hurt Google.
Although we anticipate that this relationship will continue, Xiaomi hasn’t officially adopted Google TV over Android TV, which undoubtedly raises some concerns.
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