The fork was the cost.

On 8 October Amazon announced a new line of tablets, the Alexa Tablet 8, 11 and 12 Pro. They run Android 16 with the Google Play Store, and they ship in the UK this month, from about £200 for the 8.7-inch model up to £450 for the 12 Pro. Amazon told TechCrunch it is an all-new product line with new hardware and a new OS, not a rebrand of the Fire tablets.

Fire tablets ran Fire OS, Amazon's own build of Android, with Amazon's own app store. Cheap, robust and everywhere, they were a common choice for anything that needed a screen on a counter: a visitor sign-in, a feedback point, a table-service menu, a check-in desk at an event. The price was the reason. The platform was the bill that arrived later.

What a fork really costs

A forked platform looks like the real one until you need something specific. A library that expects Google Play services. A mobile device management tool that assumes stock Android. An app your client already uses that was never published to the smaller store. Every one of those becomes a workaround, and workarounds are what break at 8am on the morning of a show.

None of this is a criticism of the hardware. The devices were fine. The issue is that the software target was owned by one company with its own reasons, and when those reasons change, your install changes with them. Amazon moving its own tablets onto mainstream Android is about as clear a signal as you get that the mainstream is where the support lives.

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The cheapest screen is the one you never have to rebuild the software for.

How we pick hardware for an install

• 01Choose the platform before the device. Stock Android, iPadOS or a browser in kiosk mode, then the cheapest hardware that runs it well.
• 02Check the management story at the brief. If the estate is more than a handful of screens, we want to enrol, lock down and update them remotely with standard tools, not by walking round with a USB cable.
• 03Keep the app portable. A web front end in a locked browser, or a standard Android build, means the hardware is replaceable. If a device dies on site, any matching unit from a high street shop should be able to take its place.
• 04Write down the update policy. Which OS version, how long it gets security patches, and who decides when it moves.

Should clients care

If you already run Fire tablets on a counter somewhere, nothing breaks today. But the next time that estate is due a refresh, treat it as a platform decision, not a shopping one. Ask what the screens run, who controls that, and how hard it would be to swap the hardware out in three years.

For new builds the news is simply good. A £200 tablet that runs Android 16 with the full Play Store is a better starting point for a kiosk than anything that sat in that price bracket before. We would still pin the model, freeze the build and manage it properly. The difference is that we no longer have to work around the platform to do it.