For media center and home entertainment enthusiasts, Kodi will be something like the Holy Grail. Too bad, a lot of Android TV consoles are coming out to market now which should be perfect for your home entertainment needs, but Kodi is nowhere in sight – at least via the Google Play Store. There’s a story behind that, but it shouldn’t keep us off our main character – the SPMC app, which takes on Kodi’s mantle on Android.
SPMC is developed by Chris Browet (who goes by the developer handle “koying”) – he was Kodi’s top man for Android, until infighting within the Kodi team caused Browet to leave. The chaos within the team is mostly because majority of the Kodi team don’t want to be associated with Android. There’s some deep reasons for that – mainly because of piracy and the fact that Kodi was being used for Android piracy boxes. More of that issue on this Reddit thread.
So SPMC is back on the Google Play Store, and for the foreseeable future, will probably be the only version of Kodi you can get for your Android TV box. SPMC is based on the latest build of Kodi which is nicknamed “Jarvis”. All the features you want on Kodi seem to be on in there, so you can check SPMC out.
The app is available for download free, check the download link below. As long as the Kodi team continue to pass on Android, SPMC will probably be the go to for all of you Kodi lovers out there.
DOWNLOAD: Google Play Store
Not sure why Android would be singled out i.e. piracy addons, since you can certainly install them in any Kodi OS version
Not sure what this article is truly about. Kodi is still available on the Play Store as of 4:12pm mountain time 3-18-2016
Yep, still there!
And, you don’t need to use the Play Store for just about anything. There are plenty of other perfectly safe places to get excellent freeware apks.
Did you check Amazon?
I use Kodi on my android phone and tablet all the time…Yes its not on the official play store, but you can download the apk just as easily on google.
It IS on the Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xbmc.kodi&hl=en
This is TOTAL IDIOCY from people that have NOT a CLUE about Kodi. I’ve been u sing it on Andoid devices for years and it works FINE. There are issues, but nothing terminal. The Kodi Wiki informs potential users of the shortcomings of low memory Android devices using Kodi. The REDDIT thread is full of panic. The Kodi developers have ALWAYS been paranoid about not even allowing mention of third party development add-ons. The piracy issue is rife with nuances. Sure, big company copyright lawyers will bluster and threaten. Remember the music industry threats to sharing? The entire industry was changed. The TV show “The Good Wife” had an excellent episode on the current piracy issue. You should all look it up and see it. Also, anyone at all familiar with Kodi knows that developer pissing matches are a dime a dozen and yes have destroyed some very good add-ons. This is a constantly changing field. I’m not going to name any, but there are quite a number of third party developers and large groups successfully going where Kodi fears to go. SPMC may well be worth a look, but all this BULLSHIT about Kodi’s death spiral is a bit like news of Mark Twain’s death while he was quite alive and kicking. I was using Kodi versions on Android devices successfully without a hitch even when box sellers were pre-installing old outdated xbmc versions. You can pretty much uninstall whatever version comes installed and go ahead and install Jarvis. It will work just fine.
Ray, not sure where you took the article to say that “Kodi is in a death spiral” , it just detailed the fact that the main Android Kodi dev decided to part ways & do his own thing. And so…Kodi is still very much alive & well & available for the Android platform.
The problem that the Kodi Foundation has with 3rd party apps that allow access to copyright materials is that when the (often poorly coded) 3rd party apps fail, users flock to the Kodi forums for help, even thought they have nothing to do with them. Kodi Foundation is not against people using any apps they want to, but the perception that links Kodi to piracy is the real issue. Peruse Ebay with a “fully loaded Kodi” search & you will see their name splashed along with “100% free movies, sports, porn” etc
If you’re not sure then you’re like most people. Try to follow the links cited directly in the story. I’m an attorney and I am very familiar with copyright law – AND with Kodi forum paranoia. It’s not unique. You can find the developer pissing matches on other third party forums. I am totally informed on eBay, Amazon, and thousands of other sources of “fully loaded Kodi.” YOU need to inform yourself better. Have you forgotten what happened with the music industry? Check out that “Good Wife” episode I mentioned. It is “Undisclosed Recipients” S5E17.
Can I watch that episode via Kodi?
LOL
and probably a ton of other ways…
The Kodi team is a bit hypocritical, yes, there are some legitimate uses for Kodi, but I wager the majority of people are using it to playback questionable content – on Android or on PC. How many people really have a large digital library of legitimate content that requires Kodi? Not very many.
And you base your knowledge of this on…? Many people (myself included) have large DVD/BD/CD collections, ripped to home NAS storage, easily pulled up using Kodi. It’s kind of like saying “well, since *some* folks use the internet for watching “questionable content”, they should just shut down the internet.” I guess you could say the same thing about TV sets. All Kodi is saying is do not use our brand to advertise/promote your 3rd party piracy addons.
agree – I did not make it up…see my earlier responses…followed the links
this article really sucked IMO. Nothing at all ABOUT spmc. how to install, add ons available etc.
Kodi mainly for gaming. and using the included, sources to watch mostly outdated movies / tv shows.
So many are cutting the cable / satellite cord, but still would like to watch their favorite shows, either on date aired, or within a week.
Same with movies. There are hundreds of sites to watch old outdated open domain movies, so why do we need Kodi or Spmc.
We have netflix (etc) a paid subscription service for movies. But even then they are in many cases 2, 3, 4 or more years old.
What many want or maybe need, is a way to watch current movies ( less than a year old) preferably free, or a one time low charge.
But with so many hackers out there, we don’t want to upload once again our credit card info.
so how about Spmc or Kodi or someone, teaming up with Paypal (for example) and bill us through an existing account?.
Um, you say kodi is nowhere to be found for Android in the Google Play Store????
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.xbmc.kodi&hl=en
Kodi for Android there you go. I have been using Kodi on Android for a long time.
It is just that from now on there is no maintainer on android build of official Kodi. So basically android specific fixes would be extremely hard to include in newer version of official Kodi. So right now if noone steps up to be android maintainer, Official Kodi team probably won’t release android build when newer version released.
If your current version works fine you’re lucky. If it has problems you’re out of luck and probably need to see if SPMC fixes those for you and probably need to communicate with SPMC dev to fix those issue instead of going to official Kodi forum.
I have Kodi 16 on my Android TV box with Pulse Lite installed, usually it takes 2 or more attempts to launch Kodi everyday to get it running. Does anyone know if this Spmc app will work with Ares and the Pulse Lite build and if it will conflict with my existing version of Kodi?
Hi Paul. It works independently, so you can have this and kodi installed with a different build on each one! Also everything is the same as kodi, except you have more audio settings for passthrough etc on SPMC. So YES Ares & Pulse build work on this also! Hope this helps you!