BBC Iplayer, All 4 etc on Mi Box 3

by Towelie888

My trusty Roku box died last week, and as I'm normally a fan of Xiaomi products I decided to buy a Xaomi Mi Box running Android TV to replace it.

I should have done more research beforehand as this thing is missing most of the apps I use on a regular basis. To be honest I had just assumed that it would have all the apps I use regularly (BBC Iplayer, All4, my5) As pretty much all other tv boxes and smart tvs I have ever seen have these as standard.

Is there any way of getting these apps working with the original remote? I gather that you can sideload the Android APK's but I really don't want to have to buy an additional remote just to use these. For example can you get the Amazon Fire TV or Nvidia shield versions of these apps working on this box?

Otherwise, is there any way of just sticking vanilla android on this thing? I know android tv looks nice, but it's missing most of what I use a TV box for.

Any advice would be appreciated

zfa

You could cast from your phone until such a time as native Android TV apps are released.

vorwrath

Most of the UK TV catch up services are available as Kodi addons. The interfaces are sometimes a bit clunky, but they should do the job.

raptor75mlt

if you sideload the apk's they won't show on the default interface but there are 3 ways to get around this:

the easiest is to use sideload launcher ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.tv.sideloadlauncher )
the paid one is to clone the apk's with app cloner ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.applisto.appcloner )
the free but a bit complicated one is to use TV App Repo app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=news.androidtv.tvapprepo.playstore )

sorry for being a dick about the remote. your concern is that the normal android interface won't work without a touchscreen, but in most cases they work well, or just connect a normal usb pc mouse. are you sure the apk's from the shield don't work on the Mi Box?

is there any way of just sticking vanilla android on this thing

that won't help your problem with the remote being used in apps. actually it would make it worse