Lollipop is coming to help heal your Fire Phone remorse

Lollipop is coming to Fire Phone. Photo: Amazon

Lollipop is coming to Fire Phone. Photo: Amazon

If you were one of the few who bought an Fire Phone and didn’t instantly return it, Amazon is preparing a Lollipop-based update that hopes to heal your remorse. Its Fire OS 5 preview is now available to developers ahead of a public release later this year.

The update will also be headed to Fire Tablets, Fire TV, and Fire TV Stick.

This is Amazon’s first Lollipop-based Fire OS, and it comes more than 7 months after Google first made Lollipop available to regular Android users. You’ll have to wait longer for the public release, but an early developer preview is now available to app makers with a Fire HD 6 or Fire HD 7 tablet.

Amazon is also offering a nifty tool that promises to test apps for Fire OS 5 compatibility “in 90 seconds or less.” It’s called Amazon Testing Service, and it’s entirely web-based; you simply need to visit the webpage and drag your app’s APK into the page.

If you don’t have a Fire HD 6 or Fire HD 7 tablet, but you want to start testing Fire OS 5, Amazon is offering a $50 discount to those who buy up to two Fire HD 7 devices — so long as you live in the U.S.

Amazon hasn’t yet confirmed what kind of improvements or features Fire OS 5 will bring, but we expect it to be a significant update with lots of changes. The retail giant has already made big improvements to its platform, but it will need many more if it wants its next Fire Phone to succeed.