Amazon announced a “developer preview” of the next version of its Fire platform, which powers its “Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick” – making no mention of its lacklustre Fire smartphone efforts.

Fire OS 5 is based on Android Lollipop (updating from KitKat in the current version), and the company said that this shift means it can make the update “while preserving even more compatibility with existing Android apps than ever before”. It is offering an app testing service to give developers compatibility results, having already compiled a “knowledge base” of the most common issues – and best practices to rectify them.

The company has not detailed any customer benefits associated with the new platform, or if and when it will be made available to existing devices. The last version of its Fire platform was unveiled in September 2014, alongside a raft of new tablets – meaning a September launch this year also seems likely.

Developers can run the Fire OS 5 preview on Fire HD6 and Fire HD7 tablets.