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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

I swear I've read this comment like five times, because you seem to actually know what's going on... but it's left me only more confused.

What is a launcher?

If Android TV is an OS, then what is a launcher for an OS?

And I guess you're as confused as I am as to also what this has to do with the previous Play Movies and TV app.

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I don’t know if Google TV is just a launcher, but I can answer the question "what is a launcher?"

On Android systems, a launcher is the home screen plus a little more. iPhone doesn’t have this concept as there's only one "launcher": the home screen. On android, however, you can install apps to radically change your home screen layout. Some are terminals, some are just A-Z lists of your apps, etc. A launcher on Android TV would be more significant because it would probably include movies, shows, and music instead of just apps.

Thanks for the reminder about why I don’t use Android. I definitely don’t want to be screwing with my phone more than I already do.

You don’t have to, it’s completely optional.

For my phone I just prefer fewer things to mess with in general, and a smaller API surface, since I don’t want to be tweaking and untweaking shit on a device which is already so unergonomic. On my desktop I prefer Windows and Linux to mess with stuff.

Then you don't need to do anything. Just use the default.

Once again, you don't have to. The phone out of the box comes with default launcher which is completely functional.

The existing Android TV launcher will show movies, shows and other content. Apps can put recommendations on the home screen for the content they offer.

Having been a prolific Android TV user for years, this appears to be just yet another reskin. No new functionality.

Time travel with me back to 1993 for a moment...

DOS is your Operating System. You can use Windows 3.11, GeoWorks, or DeskMate as your Application Launcher.

You don't even have to travel that far. Even on Windows10 you can install different shells(Cairo, bb4win, classic shell, etc).

Just so you know, classic shell is deprecated.

Open shell [0] is the up to date one.

[0] https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/

What about Microsoft Bob, can I use that?

Sure, on the way there we can stop in '95 to pick up a copy of Bob... but you are on your own for getting it working.

If you are Bill Gates you find your wife in the process of creating Bob.

I just looked and I was very disappointed to find Bill doesn't have a son named Robert. :/

A launcher for Android is somewhat similar to a desktop environment on Linux.

A launcher on Android is an app that starts other apps. The launcher app is displayed when you click on the Home button.

The same could be said about Apple TV (the device, software) and Apple TV+ (the streaming service).

Apple decided Intel's process naming scheme was a good idea.

I came here to make some joke about how Intel renaming the 7980XE to the 9980XE would be like re-releasing the iPhone 5 as an iPhone 7... but then I realized they kind of did that. Even tacked on some sort of "Edition" tag at the end.

For Android, a launcher is a special type of application that is in charge of launching other applications.

If you search for "popular launchers" you should be able to find some examples

No wonder you're confused, the website is a bit unclear until the end.

It's just like a Chromecast (HDMI dongle), but running Android TV.

The closest comparable thing may be Nvidia's Shield.

I thought it was running google tv. With Android tv deprecated.

It is running "Google TV," but "Google TV" runs on the "Android TV" operating system variant of "Android"

> What is a launcher?

“Launcher” is the Android term for a graphical shell, the thing from which you launch apps.

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