Recommendation: choose the modern home interface when you want a content-first experience, faster feature rollouts and subscription aggregation; choose the legacy smart operating system when you need wide sideloading support, simpler enterprise provisioning and proven compatibility with older set-top hardware.
Quick facts: the legacy smart platform first appeared in 2014; the modern home interface launched in 2020 and focuses on personalized rows, aggregated watchlists and a search-first home screen. Firmware and feature updates for the modern interface are delivered more frequently on first-party devices, while legacy installations typically depend on OEM firmware schedules.
Practical implications: the modern interface prioritizes aggregated recommendations, multi-user profiles and built-in voice query hooks; the legacy system exposes a more traditional app grid and is often easier to customize or sideload third-party packages. Check device specs for supported codecs (H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP9) and whether AV1 hardware decoding and Widevine L1 are present – those determine HDR/4K streaming and DRM-protected playback quality.
Developer and buyer guidance: test apps on both platform families because home-screen intents and launcher behaviors differ; verify D‑pad navigation, remote voice intents and input methods. For buyers, prefer modern-interface devices for a polished streaming center and smoother onboarding; choose legacy-OS devices for offline media servers, local playback flexibility and lockstep enterprise deployments where long-term API stability matters.
Home screen and navigation
Choose the content-first interface for immediate personalized rows (Watchlist, Suggested, Live channels); choose the app-first launcher for an icon grid and faster app switching.
- Layout differences
- Content-first: horizontal card rows (content suggestions, subscriptions, live channels) dominate the top of the screen; apps are secondary and usually tucked into an “Apps” row or drawer.
- App-first: grid or vertical list of installed applications is primary; content recommendations appear only in a dedicated area or not at all.
- Search and discovery
- Unified search bar at the top aggregates results from multiple streaming services and live channels; voice search maps to that unified index on newer interfaces.
- Legacy-style launchers rely on per-app search, so voice or text search usually opens the selected app first.
- Personalization and profiles
- Profiles produce separate home rows, watchlists and suggestions per user; guest or secondary profiles keep suggestions isolated.
- Watchlist sync (if enabled) surfaces across content rows; clearing watch history or removing items from the watchlist directly changes future suggestions.
- Live channels and inputs
- Live channel tiles are presented as a dedicated row in content-first homes; some launchers show input/source tiles instead for easy channel or device switching.
- Remote controls and shortcuts
- Quick-access buttons (home, back, assistant) behavior varies: newer interfaces map the home button to the aggregated home; legacy launchers return to the app grid.
- Long-press on home or app icons often reveals context menus (app info, move, uninstall) – use these to reorganize without digging into settings.
Optimization checklist for faster, cleaner navigation:
- Pin 6–8 frequently used apps to the first row: long-press app icon → Move/Pin; keeps one-click access without scrolling.
- Disable autoplay previews to reduce bandwidth and avoid accidental audio: Settings → Home/Display → Autoplay previews (or similar).
- Limit recommendation sources: Settings → Home → Recommendations → turn off apps or services you don’t want feeding suggestions.
- Reset content recommendations by clearing watch history: Account/Privacy → Clear watch history; expect suggestions to re-learn over several sessions.
- Create separate user profiles for household members to keep watchlists and rows distinct: Settings → Accounts → Add profile.
- Customize remote shortcuts: Settings → Remotes & Accessories → Configure buttons to launch a preferred app or input.
- Hide or disable unused apps to reduce clutter: Settings → Apps → Select app → Disable/Hide.
- Reduce active home rows (disable extra channels/cards) to improve scroll responsiveness on lower-powered boxes: Settings → Home → Manage channels/cards.
- Which to pick by use case
- Prefer content-first if you rely on curated suggestions, watchlist syncing and quick access to live content.
- Prefer app-first if you open a fixed set of apps repeatedly and want minimal scrolling to reach them.
Row-based launcher vs traditional app grid
Choose a row-based launcher for interfaces optimized around content discovery and reducing steps to play media; choose a traditional app grid when users primarily expect quick app launches and a flat app hierarchy.
Layout recommendations: display 3–5 horizontal rows visible at once, with 5–7 thumbnails visible per row before scrolling. Use 16:9 artwork for all content cards. For 1920×1080 displays target card widths of ~320px × 180px (scale ×2 for 4K). Reserve a hero slot that spans ~40–60% of the screen width for featured content (e.g., 960×540 on 1080p). Keep vertical spacing so that row height occupies 18–22% of screen height to avoid cramped focus transitions.
Navigation and focus behavior: limit focusable items per row to 7 to keep D-pad navigation predictable; make horizontal moves instantaneous and vertical moves animate within 120–160ms. Preload artwork for the first two rows and the first 3 columns of subsequent rows to avoid placeholder flashes. When a card receives focus, show a still poster immediately and, if bandwidth allows, start a muted, looped preview of 6–10 seconds after a 300–500ms delay; provide an option to disable autoplay for accessibility and low-bandwidth modes.
Developer integration: publish content as channel-like surfaces with explicit deep links into playback and content detail. Supply three image sizes per asset: thumbnail (320×180), detail (1280×720) and background (1920×1080); all should be 16:9 and optimized WebP/AVIF for reduced bytes. Implement a “resume” link and expose last-played position in the content metadata so the launcher can populate a watch-next row without full app launch.
Performance and testing: measure content starts per session, time-to-first-play (target <3s from selection), launcher memory resident (keep under 150–200MB), and first-frame render of the focused card (target <200ms after preload). Run A/B tests comparing row-based vs app-grid for a representative cohort; expect higher content plays from row-based flows but higher direct app launches from an app-grid. Use those metrics to pick a hybrid: keep an app grid entry but prioritize content rows if content-starts per session rise by more than 10% in experiments.
Migrations and admin tips: for users switching from an app grid, provide a “favorites” row that mirrors pinned apps from the grid and a rollback option that restores a flat grid within two clicks. For device makers, expose a two-mode toggle in settings and default to the row layout on devices marketed as consumption-first, and to the grid on devices marketed for app-usage or games.
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