Amazon introduces Fire OS 3.0 "Mojito" based on Android

Today amazon announced a new lineup for Kindle tablets along with their new Fire OS 3.0 "Mojito" which is based on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean (4.2.2). Fire OS 3.0 will be available on the new Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets.

The newest version brings several new features and enhancements to the Kindle Fire platform including the ability to break away from the default carousel view with its new gridview. Several mandatory apps, such as Gmail, the calendar and document-editing apps have also been improved.

Fire OS 3.0 has the following features:

• Low-level platform enhancements, including: the Optimizing Download Manager, re-designed graphics pipeline, Reading Mode, and improvements to touch latency for better performance.
• Productivity apps with enhanced email, documents, and enterprise support with hardware and software data encryption.
• Deep integration of the hardware, software and services to deliver features like X-Ray, the Mayday button, Second Screen, and more.
• Built-in media libraries for instant access to music, movies, apps, and games both stored on the device or in the cloud, and automatically syncs between them.
• Content-first user interface with both Carousel and Grid views.
• Cloud services like Whispersync, 1-Tap Archive and Cloud Collections.

Fire OS 3.0 brings the following Cloud services and user interface improvements:

• Carousel and Grid views let customers choose how they want to navigate their content. With a swipe, the redesigned Fire OS home screen easily switches between viewing their recent content on the Carousel or their favorites in Grid view.
• Cloud Collections organizes apps, books, newspapers, and magazines, making them easier to find. Collections are automatically stored in the cloud and Amazon’s Whispersync technology synchronizes collections across Kindle devices and apps.
• 1-Tap Archive frees up space on Kindle Fire tablets by identifying items that have not been used recently and provides a 1-tap option to store them in the Cloud for later retrieval.
• Kindle FreeTime gives parents the ability to more easily whitelist movies, books, apps and games appropriate for their kids’ enjoyment with the new “For Kids” suggestions.
• Social Integration gives customers OS-level sharing capabilities for Facebook and Twitter. With Facebook, customers also get contacts, events and photos integration.

The Mayday Button delivers on-device tech support and is available 24x7, 365 days a year, for free. 15 seconds or less is the Mayday response time goal. The Mayday button is built into Quick Settings and an Amazon Expert will appear on the Fire HDX and can co-pilot a customer through any feature by drawing on the screen, walking them through how to do something themselves or doing it for them. You can learn more about Mayday by heading to www.amazon.com/mayday.

Other features uniquely available to Kindle Fire users include:

• Goodreads is built into the reading experience, so customers can see what friends are reading, get recommendations, share quotes, and write reviews from within the book.
• X-Ray for Movies and TV now shows the names of TV theme or movie soundtrack songs as they play as well as trivia and goofs while watching a movie or TV show. Powered by IMDb, X-Ray for TV will also provide character backstories as the actor appears on screen.
• X-Ray Expands to Music with synchronized lyrics that lets customers follow along line-by-line with a song. Lyrics are available even when Kindle Fire is not connected to Wi-Fi or 4G.
• Second Screen allows customers to fling content from their Fire to their TV, turning the TV into the primary screen and freeing up their Fire as a second screen to email, browse the web, play a game, or follow along scene-by-scene with X-Ray. The Fire screen is not just a mirror image of the TV. Instead, when the customer flings the video to the TV, Fire syncs the video and the X-Ray data in the cloud and streams the video directly to the TV, so the quality of the video is not dependent the tablet’s processor or networking. The customer can even take their tablet to another room and leave the video playing on the TV.
• Quiet Time, directly accessed from the quick settings menu, lets you mute all incoming notifications or calendar reminders. In addition, Quiet Time can be tied to a particular activity such as reading.
• Quick Switch uses a global swipe gesture from anywhere in the system to go between multiple apps, and unlike standard Android, works with individual content items like different textbooks without navigating home.

For even more information on Fire OS 3.0 check out the following press release