About time we compiled a tally of what's broken, missing or just plain annoying on the new Fire TV, and what's (about to be) broken by the official release of OS 5 on the old Fire TV.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Fire TV 2: hardware shortcomings by design that many regard as substandard.
If these are important, you might need to look elsewhere.
1. USB 2.0 not USB 3.0
2. Ethernet not GB.
3. No optical port. Possible solution: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010JQMHNW/?
4. HDMI 1.4, not HDMI 2.0, limited to 4K at 30fps.
Software bugs and annoyances, most probably due to OS 5, but yet to be confirmed.
Could be fixed either by Amazon or developers.
1. Audio limited to stereo other than for Amazon Prime.
If Amazon won't fix this one, 9/10 boxes are heading straight back.
2. External storage limited to disks formatted in FAT32.
There's no reason why Amazon couldn't enable other formats, but there's little incentive to bother. Even Macs don't support NTFS out of the box. Either format your drives in FAT32 (and split larger files if necessary) or move them to a network share. Not hard to work around.
3. Highly inconvenient to launch Kodi and other sideloaded apps.
Long story, somewhat shortened: The Fire OS only shows icons for apps obtained from Amazon's App Store. That, unfortunately, doesn't include Kodi, everyone's favourite media player, and about 99% of the reason the AFTV has a cult following. There have been two popular ways to get around Amazon's belligerence: by having Kodi launch as proxy of another app (usually Ikono TV) using Llama; or by employing Firestarter to bind it to the Home button. Both can be loaded via ADFire.
ADBFire : http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2786505
FireStarter http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire...t-app-t3118135
It's as yet unknown whether this is deliberate (probably, as it's common to Android TV) but OS 5 appears to block the creation of local ADB connections, which has completely broken Llama's ability to intercept and switch launch requests, and partially broken Firestarter.
The best current workaround is to continue using Firestarter, with Kodi or the Firestarter launcher mapped to the Home button (single or double press), but you will need to toggle the ADB Debugging in Developer's Options each time the device is cold booted.
The good news is the developers of Firestarter and App shortcuts are on the case, but we might have to wait until OS 5 is rolled out to AFTV 1 before we see any progress:
https://github.com/sphinx02/FireStarter/issues/8
4. More to come.....
WORK IN PROGRESS
Fire TV 2: hardware shortcomings by design that many regard as substandard.
If these are important, you might need to look elsewhere.
1. USB 2.0 not USB 3.0
2. Ethernet not GB.
3. No optical port. Possible solution: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010JQMHNW/?
4. HDMI 1.4, not HDMI 2.0, limited to 4K at 30fps.
Software bugs and annoyances, most probably due to OS 5, but yet to be confirmed.
Could be fixed either by Amazon or developers.
1. Audio limited to stereo other than for Amazon Prime.
If Amazon won't fix this one, 9/10 boxes are heading straight back.
2. External storage limited to disks formatted in FAT32.
There's no reason why Amazon couldn't enable other formats, but there's little incentive to bother. Even Macs don't support NTFS out of the box. Either format your drives in FAT32 (and split larger files if necessary) or move them to a network share. Not hard to work around.
3. Highly inconvenient to launch Kodi and other sideloaded apps.
Long story, somewhat shortened: The Fire OS only shows icons for apps obtained from Amazon's App Store. That, unfortunately, doesn't include Kodi, everyone's favourite media player, and about 99% of the reason the AFTV has a cult following. There have been two popular ways to get around Amazon's belligerence: by having Kodi launch as proxy of another app (usually Ikono TV) using Llama; or by employing Firestarter to bind it to the Home button. Both can be loaded via ADFire.
ADBFire : http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2786505
FireStarter http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire...t-app-t3118135
It's as yet unknown whether this is deliberate (probably, as it's common to Android TV) but OS 5 appears to block the creation of local ADB connections, which has completely broken Llama's ability to intercept and switch launch requests, and partially broken Firestarter.
The best current workaround is to continue using Firestarter, with Kodi or the Firestarter launcher mapped to the Home button (single or double press), but you will need to toggle the ADB Debugging in Developer's Options each time the device is cold booted.
The good news is the developers of Firestarter and App shortcuts are on the case, but we might have to wait until OS 5 is rolled out to AFTV 1 before we see any progress:
https://github.com/sphinx02/FireStarter/issues/8
4. More to come.....
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