(The thread has a link to the rebuilt app, or you can simply download Android Studio and the original LauncherHijack and rebuild it yourself it’s apparently simple enough that you don’t have to be a programmer to do it.)Ī discussion thread on the LauncherHijack release site notes you can also use a program called AppCloner to make a renamed version of the original LauncherHijack app. Fixing it was as simple as renaming and rebuilding the app using Android Studio-and the identical app with a new name (renamed “Launcher Hijack,” with a space in it) runs on my Fire just fine. All it did was block any app with the specific name “LauncherHijack” from running. I was back to the plain old Fire launcher again.Ī quick rummage through Google found an XDA Developers Forum thread explaining the matter, and it turns out that Amazon’s method of blocking the app was laughably simple. It no longer even appeared in the list of apps. This morning on starting my Fire HD 10, I found a pop-up message saying LauncherHijack had been blocked on this device-and indeed, even after a reboot, it was no longer working. It has responded, not by improving the basic Fire launcher as one would hope, but by trying to block people from changing it. It seems Amazon has finally taken notice of how dissatisfied people are with the default launcher. It doesn’t support widgets, or even have a separate app drawer of its own.
The default Fire launcher is great if all you want to do is browse the various books, movies, music, and apps available to you through the store-but its usefulness for organizing and finding applications you install is distinctly second-rate. But it’s also easy to see why one would want to install a new launcher. The Google Play utilities are so much better than anything else (with the possible exception of the Fire’s Silk browser, which is really pretty good) that the reason to install them is obvious.
Apparently the first thing many people do on getting a Fire is immediately figure out how to make it less Fire-like. Those posts are the ones explaining how to tweak Amazon’s inexpensive Fire tablets to work more like plain-vanilla Android tablets- adding the Google Play utilities and changing the launcher away from the Amazon-content-plugging default. You can also choose a default action so that you’ll never have to see the default launcher again if you don’t want to.On the WordPress control panel’s statistics display, a few particular TeleRead posts are, without fail, listed among the top-five most-visited day in and day out. Once it’s installed you can tap the home button on your Kindle Fire and choose between the Amazon launcher and the GO Launcher. You don’t even need to venture outside the Amazon Appstore.Īll you need to do is download a free app called GO Launcher EX. If you’d rather have a different launcher that looks more like the Android interface seen on most phones and tablets, you can do that. That Amazon book case that greets you every time you turn on the tablet? It’s just an app called a Launcher. OK, now you have all the information you need to install third party apps that aren’t available in the App Store - but here’s something you may not have realized. I just did this and now my Fire looks almost the same as my Droid Bionic. In it they tell you how to change the Amazon launcher and use a more “standard” Android one – Go Laucher EX, for example. The best article on modifiyintg your Kindle Fire that I’ve seen is the one just published in Liliputing.