Summary
- All Fire TV devices, including Fire Stick and Fire Max, will lose the ability to hide apps with the latest update.
- The removal of this feature affects user-interface cleanliness and forces users to see all pre-installed apps.
- Amazon’s decision to remove the ability to hide apps remains unclear, possibly to increase app visibility, but feature may return in future updates.
Usually, streaming companies work on adding new features to its devices rather than removing them, but Amazon has other ideas.
According to AFTV News, Amazon has removed the ability to hide apps on its Fire TV devices in its latest software update. The popular feature helped reduce clutter on the Fire TV’s home page and allowed users to hide installed apps they didn’t want to see. For example, if a user had Netflix installed but wasn’t subscribed, they could temporarily hide it from view in their app list.
Amazon first added the feature five years ago in 2019, so it’s puzzling why it suddenly decided to remove it now. The only way to hide/get rid of an app now is to uninstall it.
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All Fire TV devices are expected to be affected
Goodbye user interface cleanliness
The update has been confirmed to be rolling out on the first-generation Fire TV Stick 4K and the second-generation Fire TV Max player (via Streamable). These devices run the latest Fire OS 8, which means this change will likely affect all Fire TV models. Since it is part of a forced software update from Amazon, there is no way to avoid it.
It’s unclear why Amazon decided to do this. It may be to appease app owners so more viewers can see their apps, but that’s just speculation. Hopefully, it will return in a future software update. Without being able to hide apps, you’re stuck seeking all of Amazon’s pre-installed apps that you can’t uninstall on your Fire TV’s app list, like Amazon News, Amazon Shopping, and even Freevee, which Amazon announced it was shutting down.
Amazon has been adding features to Fire TV devices, such as a new AI-powered search feature powered by Alexa that lets users ask more complex questions about specific genres, characters, and plot points when trying to find a show/movie. Xbox recently came to Fire TV devices also, allowing users to stream games from the cloud on the device with no Xbox console required — just a controller.
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