You like customize the interfaces of your electronics devices? Well, everything indicates that this practice could have its days numbered. Remove and put icons, change your widgets for some more according to your tastes or replace the launcher from your mobile or Smart TV may not be possible very soon. This is already beginning to happen in the Amazon Fire TV devices.
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 table. There is very clear evidence of this. For example, the division between Android TV and Google TV was looking for exactly 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 is not an exclusive practice of Google. Samsung does the same with Tizen, LG has also recently changed its webOS platform to focus on this path and Amazon could not be less with their devices Fire TV.
As reported by the user Finnzz on Reddit, Amazon has released a recent update for the operating system of your Fire devices that prevent 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 to cause Launcher Manager to stop working. Specifically, after version 7.2.7.3 of Fire OS, which has already reached the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, Fire TV Stick 4 Max, Fire TV Stick third generation and Fire TV Cube. The middle AFTVnews has collected the report from this user, has been able to verify that the data was true and indicates that this barrier will also reach old 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 while we pay for our smart devices, we can't say the same for the software that goes into those gadgets. For a company like Amazon or Google, controlling announcements that appear in the interface of these systems is another business. And sometimes the reason why 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 the updates. However, that 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.