Launch App on TV

Many TVs and streaming players include support for launching installed apps. The following is a simplified example of how to launch YouTube on a device.

Launch an app

// This variable should be a class field
// ConnectableDevice mDevice;
mDevice.getLauncher().launchApp("YouTube", new Launcher.AppLaunchListener() {

    @Override
    public void onError(ServiceCommandError error) {
        Log.d("App Tag", "App Launch error: " + error);
    }

    @Override
    public void onSuccess(LaunchSession object) {
        Log.d("App Tag", "App Launch success.");
    }
});

Device-specific app identifiers

On each device (webOS TV, Roku, etc) apps are identified by different values. Here is an example of the different identifiers in use for the YouTube app.

• webOS: youtube.leanback.v4 (value may change with future updates)
• Netcast: 0000000000017498 (value may be different on each TV)
• DIAL: YouTube (listed in DIAL registry)
• Roku: 837 (Roku-specific channel number)

Launching an app with device-specific identifiers

The following snippet shows how to detect the platform of your device and launch with the appropriate app identifier.

String appId = null;
// This should be a class field
// ConnectableDevice mDevice;

if (mDevice.getServiceByName(WebOSTVService.ID) != null)
    appId = "youtube.leanback.v4";
else if (mDevice.getServiceByName(NetcastTVService.ID) != null)
    appId = "0000000000017498";
else if (mDevice.getServiceByName(RokuService.ID) != null)
    appId = "837";
else if (mDevice.getServiceByName(DIALService.ID) != null)
    appId = "YouTube";

if (appId == null)
    return;

mDevice.getLauncher().launchApp(appId, new Launcher.AppLaunchListener() {

    @Override
    public void onError(ServiceCommandError error) {
        Log.d("App Tag", "App Launch error: " + error);
    }

    @Override
    public void onSuccess(LaunchSession object) {
        Log.d("App Tag", "App Launch success.");
    }
});

AppInfo helper object

You will notice that the previous example refers to an AppInfo object. This object is used internally by Connect SDK to manage an app’s protocol-specific properties. If a device supports app list, the app list will return a set of AppInfo objects for each app installed on the TV.

Launching an app with parameters

In most cases, a device’s launcher object will allow you to pass launch parameters to your app. Connect SDK has normalized the parameter input type to a keyed set of values. These values are then parsed into the appropriate format for the protocol (XML, JSON, URL params, etc).

// This should be a class field
// ConnectableDevice mDevice;

JSONObject params = null;
try {
    params = new JSONObject() {{
        put("someProperty", "someValue");
    }};
} catch (JSONException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

AppInfo appInfo = new AppInfo("your_app_id");
mDevice.getLauncher().launchAppWithInfo(appInfo, params, new Launcher.AppLaunchListener() {

    @Override
    public void onError(ServiceCommandError error) {
        Log.d("App Tag", "App Launch error: " + error);
    }

    @Override
    public void onSuccess(LaunchSession object) {
        Log.d("App Tag", "App Launch success.");
    }
});

Note

Due to the variety of protocols in use, it is strongly recommended that you only use strings for the keys AND values of your parameters.