I'm not a fan of the new home screen ads, but on my Jetstream I can at least toggle over to the apps tab (or discover). It looks like my tivo is on an older launcher that only has the home screen, which sometimes has some very irrelevant content I can't dismiss. Is there a way to update the launcher?
No reliable way to update it. You can however get rid of the spotlight ad "feature" if you disable auto-update in Google Play Store settings and uninstall the last update to the "Android TV Home" app @ settings > apps > see all apps > show system apps > Android TV Home > unistall updates. Just note you'll have to routinely check for app updates and manually push them. Another option is to install another launcher and use the "boot on launch" and "button mapper" apps to bypass the TiVo homescreen on startup and when pressing the home button on the remote.
Update: played with the emulator, and there is no way around it: it's entirely server-side controlled. Even the Nvidia Shield has no particular flag blocking it. Google giveth, but I'm afraid Google wont taketh away anytime soon.
Look at this garbage: same apps, 3 different looks. https://imgur.com/a/4pgrNag
That's Google in a nutshell. XD
The Tivo is immune from the google UI for one more year based on what was reported last week. But if you want to discover things use the Tivo Stream app which can be brought up with a single button press, best of both worlds, no reason to upgrade. Besides it is far easier to discover things on a computer. I would love an Android 12 upgrade though.
Uh. I had not noticed that.
It makes for a THIRD version of the Android TV Home launcher. Absolutely fascinating.
Unfortunately, all of those UIs are all living within the very same version of the same apks: Android TV Home and Android TV Core Services.
The difference is that the TiVo is part of the Operator Tier Lite; where the Jetstream and my Hisense TV are not. What is ultimately shown in the UI is decided by some flag in the device manifest, I suppose?! What I mean by that is that there is no switching from one to the other.
It's a bit late for me to crack open the emulator and find out what's at play here, but I will definitely check that out tomorrow. Very intriguing.