My new app Informer has just been released for all Amazon Fire TV models. The purpose of the app is to conveniently provide information about your Fire TV. This initial version lets you know which model/generation device you own, it’s hardware and video specs, and what known features or changes the various software updates have made to the device. I hope to expand on the information in the app with future updates.
Informer started out as just a way to help Fire TV owners figure out exactly which model they had. I constantly see people asking how to figure out if they have the 1st-generation or 2nd-generation Fire TV Stick, for example, or if they have the original 1080p Fire TV or the 4K Fire TV. For experienced owners, these might seem like obvious questions, but with 12 distinct Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Cube, and Fire TV Edition television models, it can get confusing sorting them out. Now there’s a quick and easy way to figure it all out. Just load up Informer.
When you launch Informer, it immediately tells you which Fire TV model it’s running on. It also lists the device’s hardware specs, such as CPU speed, RAM, storage, and more. It also lists video and audio support, so that it’s easy to figure out which video codecs your device supports, if it supports HDR, what maximum resolution and framerate are supported, and more. If you’re interested, you can use the Fast Forward and Rewind buttons on your remote to cycle through all Fire TV models to compare specs between your model and others.
Informer also provides information about all of your device’s software updates. Since I already try to meticulously keep track of all updates across all models, I thought it would be nice to have that information on hand and accessible right from the Fire TV itself. The next time your device updates, you can load up Informer and hopefully get some insight into what has changed. This information is dynamically pulled from AFTVnews every time the app loads, so it will stay up to date without needing to update the app itself.
While viewing software update information about your own Fire TV model, you can press the Play button on your remote to toggle software update information about other models. In addition to a list of notes and known changes about each software update, there is also a list of relevant articles that I’ve written about the update and/or the features that the update adds. You can select any article from the list and it will open up in Silk or Firefox to tell you more about the item.
As with all of my apps, Informer is completely free. There is a donation button at the top of the app that allows you to contribute to its future development through in-app donations using your Amazon account. Please don’t feel obligated to donate in any way. You’re welcome to enjoy the app at no cost. Do know that I may experiment with displaying ads in the app, if necessary, as a supplement to donations.
Huge thanks go out to my developer, Johannes Bramauer, for always being willing and ready to turn my ideas into reality. (We’re also working on a long-overdue major v2.0 update to Downloader.) I hope to continue to expand the information provided in the Informer app, so if you’ve got any ideas for what you’d like to see added, please let me know in the comments below.
If you think this new app is usefull, I’d greatly appreciate it if you take a second to leave a review.
@AFTVnews
AFTVnews
That is a very cool idea and nice looking.
Nice one bruv
I looked in the App Store informer showup but will not download. Is the a different place I can get this ?
To Download, simply “search” from your Firestick “Home” screen.
Type “Informer”. Before you type all the character’s your choices will be on the left.
Select the one with a magnifying glass on an orange background.
Good luck.
I sure wish I could find this — all I seem to find is shows named Informer.
Wow! This is really cool!
Excellent! Look forward to installing later tonight when I get home.
Give me apk link
It’s in the Amazon appstore. Just search for “Informer” right on the Fire TV. Are you not finding it?
It does not appear in the german appstore. Is it region limited?
It shouldn’t be region limited. See here: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07MBQ3JX3/
Wasn’t working properly with my Toshiba TV when I first installed it. It didn’t display the details.
I’ve sent you an email to the address you entered for this comment. I’m hoping you can send me some photos of the issue. The Toshiba/Insignia TVs are the only ones I wasn’t able to test the app on.
UPDATE: Thanks to Charlie’s awesome help, I’ve fixed the issue that prevented the app from displaying info on Toshiba and Insignia Fire TV Edition televisions. No app update needed, since the issue was server-side.
Elias, Any way to get a paid version so we can purchase with our slow ship credits?
Sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean. What are “slow ship credits” ?
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Oh ok. I always thought you could use no-rush credits to pay for in-app purchases as well. Are you sure that’s not possible?
You’re correct and now have ice cream money! Just to be sure, I’ll test it out more often. Thanks for all you do.
haha, sweet! (In multiple ways!) Thanks for the contribution!
Hey, Elias…
Another great idea for an app… nice one !! Reminds me of ‘Mactracker’ for keeping up-to-date with products from Apple. While I understand and appreciate your need to consider advertising as a further means of support (besides donations) for the app, it might be worth considering making it ad-free for those who have donated. If you can also make it possible to go from having ads (should that ever be the case) to no ads by making a donation that would be really useful, too.
One other thing, as regards the Amazon webpage for your ‘Informer’ app… under the heading of ‘Product Description’, at the end of the paragraph, you have written: “You may also BROWSER spec and update information for all the different Fire TV models.” but I’m assuming that was meant to be “…BROWSE spec and update information” so you may wish to address that! ;-)
Keep up the good work… it’s much appreciated!
Thanks for catching that typo! I still don’t know if I will need ads, but if I do put them in, I’ll definitely make it so ads don’t show up if someone donates when I next updated the APK in the appstore.
What about telemetry so you can monitor updates? I guess if done this should be opt in.
Do you mean like getting a notification on the Fire TV when the software updates section changes?
No, sorry my last message wasn’t clear.
I was thinking your app, with permission, could report when the it noticed a new version of the OS is running. I think I’ve read reports here about the speed of some rollouts, and I usually find out here about new versions. If your app reported back to your server, you would have independent quantitative data to report back to us. You could see if a rollout was paused, for example.
Would probably help to also collect the rooted status of the device.
I usually don’t opt into data collection, but I would opt into this.
Jim
P.S. thanks for all the good work.
Looks good Elias, not sure if this is within the scope of this app but how about CPU operating temperature and maybe down the road some basic wifi info,signal strength, channel etc.
Nifty idea for an all inclusive config status indicator for the firestick. Awesome work
Saw this article and immediately thought of Snow!
If you knock (select) six times, he just might appear. ;-)
I tried to get it from the app store but it says “app not found/ the app you are looking for could not be found”
Update: that was on my 4k stick. I was able to get it on my 2nd gen stick and it works fine so i transferred it using easy fire tool to my 4k stick but when i start it says new app store version required.
Hmm, it’s showing up on my 4K Stick and on Amazon’s site as compatible with the 4K Stick. Maybe it just needed a bit of time to show up on all devices.
If anyone else can’t find it through their 4K Stick or other model, please let me know.
I like the app.i’ll try again later on my 4k
I signed out and back into my Amazon account now the app works.
Elias, would Amazon pull your app if you added a tidbit letting you know if your Fire device is rootable?
I doubt they’d pull it as long as I didn’t provide instructions for rooting within the app. The main reason I actually didn’t add that from the beginning is that I haven’t found a reliable way to read the current software version, which I would need to know to determine rootability. I can easily read the OS version on some models, but others only report the build version, which means I need to cross-reference that with a list of software version numbers. It’s something I plan to work on soon, given all the rooting buzz going around.
My Man! Keep up the great work! We love everything you do Elias…
Awesome app. The whole site is great and has been extremely helpful. I’ve wanted to donate but never got around to it and this app makes it very easy to do so.
Not able to get Informer thru search
What country are you in? I believe the app is not yet available in Mexico and India because those markets don’t allow in-app purchases yet.
First of all. Welcome back! Just tried this app. I can’t get the FFWD or Back button to work that lets you compare other AFTVs. Is that feature broke?
New Omni TV, and it’s not showing up, nor did it appear in appstore searches.
yeah i can’t find it on my omni tv either
net::ERR_CLEARTEXT_NOT_PERMITTED on JVC FireTV :(
Why did you make it load to the Firestick 4k and not to the external memory? Firestick 4k is so limited on space already.
The original Fire TV 4K doesn’t support installing apps to external storage natively.