Amazon’s Alexa Tablets are coming for the iPad

Amazon is launching a new lineup of tablets that bear almost no resemblance to any tablet Amazon has ever launched before. They’re not even called Fire, the name Amazon has used for its tablets for the last 15 years. They’re called Alexa Tablets, and they’re designed to do two things: bring Alexa Plus to the center of your whole computing life, and be straight-up excellent tablets.

The most important thing about these new tablets’ software? They run Android. Full, Google Play-supported, all-the-apps Android. There are plenty of preloaded Amazon apps, of course, and some built-in ways to quickly access Prime Video content or shop for basically anything anywhere at any time, but it’s finally offering a proper Android experience. Panos Panay, Amazon’s SVP in charge of all things hardware and Alexa, tells me that “Google Play was a necessity, end of story.”