SPMC as Launcher on Nexus Player

by lordjustice17

Device: Nexus Player running Nougat

Goal: To replace the leanback launcher with SPMC as the launcher.

Questions:

1) Has anyone successfully done this? Were there any issues? Did it work on Nougat?

2) What happens when you long press the home button? Is there still multitasking or do apps close whenever you go back to SPMC? If I was playing a Netflix video and pressed the home button to go back to SPMC does it keep playing in the background?

3) How is the performance of the interface using SPMC as the launcher compared to the leanback launcher?

4) Do the voice search features still work when you press the voice button?

mctnguy

Would this work?

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/98276/open-an-app-on-startup-after-booting

Tired8281

Pretty sure you just download the "Launcher" version of SPMC from the website, turn on Unknown Sources, then install it. Once that's done, you click Home and select SPMC. I can't speak to the other points, since I prefer Leanback.

switchy85

2 ways to do this. Either root and install the app home switcher and disable leanback, or there's also an adb command to hide the leanback launcher (don't remember it exactly, but I'm sure a Google or xda search will find it). I'm using home switcher on my shield right now to make spmc my launcher and I like it a lot. Sadly the shield doesn't have N yet, so not sure if it works, but don't see why not.
Since the shield doesn't have N I can't answer the multitasking question, but on M going back to the launcher stops Netflix videos. Since on regular phones and tablets Netflix stops, I assume it would do that on the Nexus player, as well.
I use the Arctic zephyr skin, so the UI is wonderful as a launcher. And it even shows full screen recommendations of movies and TV shows I already have.
Voice works just the same as with the leanback launcher. Although at the bottom of searches spmc had entries for movies and TV shows that match, so that's nice.
Main problem is the need to install a shortcut apk to get into the standard settings screen of your device. And a shutdown/restart app to get quick access to those things. I also installed xposed and xposed additions to get quick access to the sleep button by holding down the back button.

youareme7

This isn't helpful but thanks for talking about this, I had never heard of SPMC before today when I started looking into the plex addon for Kodi (plex for ATV seems to suck ass for my DVR'd content, to the point that it's not worth using at all) for superior playback. Is SPMC really better than Kodio on ATV? I'll probably try to get the launcher installed too if like you say in a comment you can just link your android apps in the launcher.

skeletonbutt

Why