For those who want explicit confirmation, the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K has not made any changes regarding to installing 3rd-party apps. You can sideload APKs in the exact same way as with any other Fire TV model. My Downloader app works on the new Fire TV Stick 4K and the same developer options, which let you allow apps from unknown sources, are present on the device. Kodi, the most popular app to sideload, works as expected and the Kodi icon appears on the home screen in both the Recent and App rows. To install the latest stable version of Kodi, enter bit.ly/kodi176 into the URL field in my Downloader app, or enter bit.ly/kodi18beta4 for the latest v18 Beta 4 version of Kodi.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K has been released today. Before digging into the performance of the new streaming device, here’s a comparison of how it physically stacks up against previous Fire TV Sticks as well as a look at what comes with the Fire TV Stick 4K. Of course, one of the items included is the new Alexa Voice Remote, which now includes power and volume buttons for the first time, so here’s a comparison of the new and old remotes as well. Read more ›

The all-new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K will officially be released tomorrow but some customers have already received their pre-orders early. AFTVnews reader Mike M. is one of those lucky customers and big thanks to him for providing these photos that give us our first look at the new box. Let me know in the comments below what questions you have about the new Fire TV Stick 4K and I’ll do my best to answer them once my pre-orders arrive. Read more ›

A feature that is too often neglected by streaming media players is the ability to deinterlace 1080i video on the hardware level. This is an important capability for people with over-the-air tuners, like an HDHomeRun, that watch broadcast channels on their streaming media players. If you’re one of those people and are interested in the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, rest assured because the new device does support hardware accelerated MPEG-2 video for smooth 1080i viewing at up to 60 fps. Read more ›