Amazon’s new line of Fire tablets get released next week, and with their release comes a new operating system called Fire OS 5, aka “Bellini”.
The updated software adds some new features like Kindle Word Runner, the new speed reading tool.
Fire OS 5 also adds a few new accessibility features to Fire tablets for people with vision and hearing problems.
Among them is a new VoiceView feature that reads the content of the screen aloud and describes the actions that take place on-screen using IVONA text-to-speech voices, similar to the Speak Screen feature on iOS.
Another new features lets users setup quick gestures to easily navigate to the homescreen, go back, and access notifications.
Large font mode increases font size system wide, and it’s been expanded to include more areas of the user interface. Web browsing has been optimized too, and earcon sounds have been updated for Fire OS 5.
Other accessibility features for Fire tablets include support for braille using Bluetooth braille displays, there’s a screen magnifier to zoom in on any part of the screen, there’s a high contrast setting, and closed captioning for videos.
An automatic software update to Fire OS 5 is going to be released for last year’s Fire tablets too, but older models beyond that probably won’t be updated (no official word yet).
I heard OS 5 was going to get rid of the carousel GUI too… YAY!!!!
Yeah the screenshots seem to indicate that too. They also got rid of the soulless black background. Hopefully they allow setting custom wallpapers, which would be a first.
Will the new OS have text to speech for enable books?
Yeah, that’s an existing feature that isn’t going anywhere.
Now if they added Alexa Amazon Echo to the Fire Tablets they could be a great benefit to disable people.
Are you saying that the Fire HDX 4th Generation tablet is going to get the new Fire OS 5.0 update and how sure are you of this?
Pretty sure. They said last years tablets will get updated, and the image for the Fire HD 6 shows the new homescreen.
Will kindle fire hdx 7 inch, 3rd generation get Bellini update???
Probably not. It has the previous generation hardware and was released over two years ago. But I don’t know for sure. They still haven’t even updated the Fire HD 6.
Per a conversation I had last week with Amazon Customer Service, the HDX and 3rd Generation devices WILL be receiving the update to OS5. The question is “WHEN”!
That’s the same customer service that repeatedly said a new Kindle was going to be released toward the end of 2015, so I wouldn’t count on anything they say at this point. They’ve been notoriously inaccurate with this kind of info lately.