[ixian]

As I see it, the only benefits to adding XBMC to the Amazon store is
1) easier install
2) added to homescreen

So obviously a crippled version added to the store is a terrible idea. But has anybody worked on an unofficial XBMC homescreen launcher? A basic app that is in the Amazon store and can be added to the mainscreen. At launch it would check if XBMC is sideloaded. If it is, it will launch XBMC. If it's not, it would display instructions on how to sideload. Seems like a pretty simple solution that I haven't seen be mentioned yet.

I don't have a AFTV yet, because I'm holding out to see what Android TV looks like. But I'd be a bit more interested in AFTV if we could get XBMC onto the homescreen.

Pretty sure it's been discussed - it's not quite that easy, as you'll have to get past the Amazon screening process and more importantly keep it from being pulled. And whoever does it will have to deal with the inevitable flood of questions and complaints from users who don't understand what it does or how to get it to work. Still, someone could always try.

Look, Amazon is selling a $99 box primarily so they can offer yet another way for people to buy their content. The only reason they allow sideloading at all is to keep motivated users from trying to bypass it.

Making it easy for users to install a third party app that allows robust access to *cough* local media (let's not be coy about this) is not a concern for them - it is in fact counter to their entire purpose for the AFTV, you can be sure they aren't selling it at $99 to make a profit from the hardware. Trying to get an app that allows easier access to such a sideloaded app on their official store may be the thing that gets it on their radar at all - and not in a good way. Before anyone brings up Plex remember that is an entirely different case, that app is a media front end for a local transcoding/management service (PMS), which is not the same thing at all as an app that would just provide shortcut access to a sideloaded app that otherwise wouldn't make it on their store due to IP restrictions.

It doesn't matter what is "legal" or not, just like it doesn't to Apple or Google - all the matters is what they think. These guys are starting up their own studio and are in a deep symbiotic relationship with existing ones, believe me they aren't going to allow diddly that they think might hurt those relationships.

Right now it's dead-simple to sideload/update XBMC and almost as simple to configure Llama to use another shortcut (like Plex, ironically) to launch XBMC, auto-start it, whatever. You can easily add Netflix and other app short cuts, including one to the Amazon Prime home screen, inside XBMC. Hell, folks have already figured out how to map the remote easily. If it weren't for the lack of 24p and refresh changes everyone here would be screaming that this was the best XBMC box that ever existed.