With the staggering amount of various electronic devices that are available to the general populous, many key features are overlooked. Yes everyone focuses incredible amount of attention towards the camera quality and camera features if its a phone, the amount of storage in the device, the processing power, but those seem to be the only features people notice.
One of the main features that is found in generally all devices that constantly is overlooked is the media player and the UI, or user interface, of said media player. Due to the abundance of third party music and video applications that are out there, it is no wonder the UI gets overlooked seeing how many people don’t use the stock music and movies application. Instead they opt to use the music streaming service Spotify or Pandora and watch their movies on Netflix or HBO thus nullifying what the stock application looks like.
Even if you take the third party music and movie streaming applications, there are also various third party media players for all sorts of devices. Why be stuck with the stock Apple, Android, or Windows media player when you can get a media player of your liking. In addition to most stock media players being bland both in look and functionality, the stock media players allow very little customization both in the visual and settings department. With that being said, let’s turn our focus on one of the more successful media players that seems to have fallen out of the eye of the general public; Kodi.
What is XBMC/KODI?
In addition to the ability to view the aforementioned types of media, xbmc was also highly customizable allowing users to hand pick their applications visual appearance through the use of skins that would alter the colors and icons throughout the application. Finally one of the more appealing features of xbmc was the ability to install various plug ins that would allow streaming from countless media services like YouTube, Amazon Prime instant video, and the aforementioned popular music streaming application Spotify.
While xbmc was later renamed to Kodi, xbmc was originally intended for the first xbox hence the name Xbox media center or xbmc for short. Later versions of Kodi then included DVR support and a PVR, or personal video recorder, allowing users to record their favorite videos.
XBMC in the Beginning
Now that we have the brief introduction on what xbmc offered as a third party media player, what happened that caused xbmc to fall out of the public eye and lose out on potential users. To start there was the name change to Kodi. While the name change wasn’t the end all be all of the media player’s success it through off people who didn’t know about the name change. If they looked up xbmc they will see xbmc being referred to as Kodi unaware that they are the same thing. In addition to the change in name xbmc also lost exposure and a platform.
In June of 2015 Amazon had removed the Kodi application from the Amazon appstore. This was due to Kodi’s ability to illegally download content, although it does not come with pirated material, which was against Amazon’s terms and services thus resulting in the removal from the app store. However, Kodi is still available on the Google Play Store if you have a phone or tablet that has access to the Google Play Store.
In addition to the removal of Kodi from the Amazon appstore, Kodi’s application can also be used with libdvdcss which supports the playback of DVD-Video movies encrypted with the Content Scramble System. Whether this is actually illegal is a question many nations are currently thinking about. However in the European Union, this is likely legal since DRM can be circumvented if it is done to facilitate legal use. Since we are talking about legal and legality concerning Kodi, Kodi is represented by the Software Freedom Law center (SFLC) which assists the Kodi project and its developers when it comes to legal trouble i.e. copyright infringement, trademarks, and branding issues.
Aside from the the name change and removal from the Amazon appstore there wasn’t really a massive blow to the Kodi project that cause it to fall out of the eye of the general public. No massive lawsuits towards Kodi, no major virus with the application that turned users away, nothing.
XBMC/Kodi in 2016