Say goodbye to custom launchers on your Fire TV
If we compare the user interface of a Smart TV from a few years ago with one from now, we will find very notable differences. Current systems are designed so that the user becomes a constant consumer. There is very clear evidence of this. For example, the division between Android TV and Google TV was looking for just that: to create a test scenario in which the launcher is the center of the operating system and is fully controlled by Google. And that’s not just Google’s practice. Samsung does the same with Tizen, LG has also recently changed its webOS to focus on this path and amazon could not be less with your devices FireTV.
As reported by user Finnzz on Reddit, Amazon has recently released a update for the operating system of your Fire devices that prevents users from changing the system launcher. Replacing the application launcher with a custom one has never been an official alternative within said OS, but it was possible thanks to an application called LauncherManager. The program still exists, but something has changed in the system dependencies so that the Launcher Manager stops working. Specifically, after version 7.2.7.3 of Fire OS, which has already arrived on the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, Fire TV Stick 4 Max, Fire TV Stick 3rd generation and Fire TV Cube. The media AFTVnews has collected the report of this user, has been able to verify that the data was true and they point out that this barrier will also come to older Fire TV devices with Fire OS 5 and 6.
Why does Amazon want to block third party launchers?
It is often said that if you do not pay for the product, the product is you. And, although we pay for our smart devices, we cannot say the same about the software that these gadgets integrate. For a company like Amazon or Google, controlling announcements appearing in the interface of these systems is yet another business. And sometimes the reason we’ve been sold that Fire TV Stick for such a cheap price.
Changing a launcher for a custom one implies that the device manufacturer sees one of its sources of income disappear. And obviously Amazon doesn’t want that. So, if you want to continue using a custom launcher on your Amazon Fire TV, the only thing you can do is block updates. However, this will mean that you will not be able to use some of the new features that are added to Amazon devices, as well as security patches or apps that require higher versions of the operating system.
