Amazon is quietly closing a chapter in the history of consumer streaming hardware, confirming that all future Fire Stick devices will run its proprietary Vega OS rather than the Android-based Fire OS that defined the platform for over a decade. The latest Fire OS 16 update — built on Android 16 — will reach only Fire TV smart televisions, leaving Fire Sticks behind not through neglect, but by design. In choosing a Linux-based system it controls entirely, Amazon is trading the openness that made its sticks popular with tinkerers for a tighter, more secure ecosystem — a trade-off that reflects a