Amazon is now in the process of updating the software for the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick devices, and it seems that they listened to their users on this one. While most of the changes in this update are bug fixes, one particular update deals with the issue that users of the Fire TV found it hard to get to their installed apps in general. Now it gets easier.
The new software – now on version 5.0.5.1 – now lets you get to the My Apps menu just by double-clicking the home button. This is a needed update, as you had to go to the home screen and then scroll through a bunch of options before you got a screen showing all of your installed apps. You can still do that if you want, but yay for convenience, eh?
The Amazon Fire TV ecosystem has always supported “sideloading” apps – that is, installing apps from third party sources and not the amazon App Store. The problem was that the Fire TV software did not show these apps by default. You’d either have to dig deep into the menus to launch them, or install a third party launcher called Firestarter. The update now shows sideloaded apps in the Recent Apps menu, making them easier to get to.
There are downsides to the update, of course. For one, Firestarter will not work on the new version yet, so that may be a bummer for you guys. Also, the new update seems to block some ways of gaining root access. So update at your own risk, eh?
VIA: Liliputing
