pengchujin/aerial-tv · pengchujin

The part the viral hit missed: a digital blogger built a "Apple TV desktop for domestic TVs" in three days. 17 days, nearly 10k stars

What it is A free, open-source Android TV launcher styled after Apple TV, built for Xiaomi, TCL and other domestic TVs: no ads, no recommendation feed, auto-launches on boot, and revives itself if the system kills it in standby. An AI can install it for you in one step.

Why it took off It launched three days after CleanYourTV went viral worldwide, filling the gap that China-spec TVs can't swap launchers. The author already had 70k X followers, the launch post got 76k views, and "let an AI install it for you" prompted AI-tool creators to make tutorials.

CHow you could ride it Don't build another domestic-TV launcher; learn the playbook instead: watch the next global hit, and within 72 hours serve the local audiences or hardware it misses. Name the audience and brand in the title, write an AI-installable guide, and launch with a before-and-after image.

Grade C: the playbook is learnable, but copying it directly has little chance. The leader is already at 10k stars, and copycat domestic-TV launchers from the same period are stuck at a few hundred. It relied on the author's own 70k followers and CleanYourTV's three-day window, and followers don't have either. Chatter in niche circles

Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-10-20 · 10,551 stars · 7 days +2,237: GitHub · stars
Data 2026-10-21 → 2026-11-08 (19 days, 18 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one

On the evening of Oct 20, digital blogger "Jiangzi Biao" (70k X followers) posted: "Used AI to build a clean 'Apple' launcher for domestic TVs: no ads, no recommendation feed, just big app tiles, a clock and nice wallpapers." Three days earlier, the open-source project CleanYourTV had just gone viral worldwide with "use AI to remove TV ads," and its own admitted weak spot was that China-spec TVs can't swap launchers. Aerial filled exactly that gap. In 17 days it reached 9,951 stars. It's worth watching not for the technology, since replacing the launcher was already done by others, but for the timing: within three days of the global hit, it picked up the group the hit didn't serve.

What happened three days earlier

Oct 17: the author of CleanYourTV posted before-and-after shots of their parents' TV, claiming Claude Code had stripped out the ads. The README says the post got 8.4M views, the project grew to 53k stars, and it hit #1 on trendshift's weekly chart 10-19. "AI removes TV ads" spread everywhere for a few days.

But it got stuck with Chinese users. On Oct 20, GitHubDaily posted a Chinese introduction to CleanYourTV and specifically noted that the launcher can't be swapped on some China-spec TVs. The CleanYourTV README also says "some China-spec TCL units refuse to install any launcher."

28 minutes before the GitHubDaily post went out, a post by Suanzhi Table was already live, with 4 images comparing it to the Xiaomi original desktop, and it had 76k views at the end (X, 11-06 read).

What it actually does

An Android TV launcher styled after Apple TV: a glass dock at the bottom for frequent apps, a background of Bing wallpapers or 114 segments of Apple TV aerial screensavers, a control center, and icon organization from your phone by QR code. The README's first screen is a comparison table: on the left, the stock launcher with "full-screen show recommendations, membership and limited-time promo badges"; on the right, the same TV after installing Aerial.

Three things make it actually usable on China-spec TVs:

It takes over the HOME key, so the stock launcher doesn't have to be disabled;
It launches on boot;
It pulls itself back if the system kills it in standby (a companion keep-alive app is included).

A user's summary under the launch post, after going through the site: "It doesn't disable the stock launcher. It catches the HOME key and relaunches itself if killed, which also covers the Xiaomi standby background-kill issue. To revert, replace the final bash with bash -s restore." That evening the author posted "GitHub 300+ stars", and a commenter already concluded: "For domestic Android TVs, I'd recommend Aerial as the launcher... CleanYourTV's ad-stripping package is strong, but Aerial addresses the domestic-hardware problem of 'the box doesn't stay alive after power-off/standby' much better."

It doesn't touch the ads themselves: boot-time ads are baked into the firmware, and Aerial doesn't manage that. The docs walk through enabling ADB brand by brand (Xiaomi, TCL, Haier, OPPO, Sony), need no root, and can be reverted in one step.

Let an AI install it for you

The hardest step of swapping a launcher has always been ADB, and ordinary users quit at the command line. Aerial's recommended route is to paste a prompt into an AI that can run commands on your computer (WorkBuddy, Doubao desktop, Qwen desktop, Trae or Claude Code all work): "Read the full install instructions before doing anything, then run the commands yourself on my computer instead of only telling me the steps." At the end it asks the AI to paste the output of three verification commands back.

That removes the barrier, and the installation itself becomes content. On Zhihu there's "Use WorkBuddy to give your TV a clean launcher, a solid AppleTV substitute" (10-23); on Bilibili, "Installing CleanYourTV+Aerial to one-click optimize your TV" (10-24); tutorials also show up on X, CSDN, Smzdm and YouTube. Users and creators of each AI tool have turned "use my AI to swap my TV's launcher" into their own content topic.

Where the stars came from

Date	Stars	What happened
10-20	—	Author posted on X and Weibo first; hit 300 that same night
10-21	411	Reposts begin
10-22	1,937 (+1,526, single-day high)	"Live 3 days, 2.4K stars"-style articles appear, with AI install prompts attached
10-23 to 10-24	3,784	Zhihu WorkBuddy tutorials, Bilibili tutorials
10-28	7,141	The author writes a changelog with every release, and Sina reposts them
11-01	8,314	GitHubDaily ran a separate feature on Aerial
11-06	9,951	Daily gain about +300

(Stars: GitHub daily record)

Which channels drove the 10-22 stars on the 1,500 day can't be separated out. I found no sign of paid promotion; the repo was under 60 days old and couldn't get onto GitHub trending, so the stars mostly came from social platforms and tutorials.

Fast releases also helped: 17 releases and 79 commits in 753 days, with the author writing 635 of them alone. Most of the 357 open issues are "how do I install this on my model?" Each fix ships as a release, and each release is another round of sharing. Later it extended support to older Android 4.0 TVs. Cumulative APK downloads are about 110K (GitHub Releases, 11-06). That includes repeat downloads from in-app updates, so the real install count is probably much lower.

Why others can't catch up

The project has three things that are hard for followers to replicate:

The author brings his own traffic. His 71K-follower X account, with a matching Weibo account, got 76K views on the launch post. No cold start needed. His earlier projects were mostly built around Apple TV; the "Apple-style" persona was already his.
A three-day window. It rode the attention wave from CleanYourTV's viral moment, and that kind of event won't happen again. Daily gains have dropped from 1,500 to 300: +5,783 the week before, +2,231 this week.
The slot is already taken. Domestic TV desktops that appeared the same week include quiet-tv (239 stars), OneTV (59), MarcoTV (28), a Bilibili newbie desktop, plus reworks of it such as the Skyworth edition and StarRiver desktop, and repacks on APK sites. None has passed a few hundred stars.

Overseas, Projectivy Launcher has 1.79M installs on Google Play and about +69K in the last 7 days; FLauncher has 590K; Monet Launcher has 125K (Google Play, 11-06). Good-looking third-party TV launchers already exist overseas.

There's another risk: if a manufacturer one day uses a firmware update to take over HOME or block ADB, projects like this break together. Whether that will happen is unverified.

If it were you

Verdict: Building a "clean desktop for domestic TVs" from scratch is already late. The top project has 10K stars, and the copycats stall at a few hundred. What you can take from it is a playbook: in the days after a global hit, catch the people or hardware segment it doesn't cover, and use AI as the installer.

Who it suits: People who already have followers in a niche device community (digital creators, longtime owners of a particular brand), and who can ship a working AI-coded version within 72 hours of a hit appearing.

Who it doesn't suit: People with no distribution channel of their own who expect one repo to cold-start, and people who want to copy Aerial to build yet another domestic TV desktop.

How to do it:

Watch open-source projects that are blowing up. Search their READMEs, issues, and Chinese reposts for phrases like "not supported," "can't replace," or "does the China model work?" Those are the gaps. Title the product with the audience and brand directly, e.g. "for domestic TVs," "Xiaomi, TCL."
Write an install guide aimed at AI (agent.md) so users can paste one message to an AI and finish setup, then have the AI post the acceptance output. Removing the setup barrier means users across AI tools will make tutorials for you.
The first image should be a before-and-after comparison, with the stock interface and yours side by side.
Ship releases often, pair each with a screenshot, post it again on X and Weibo, and ship each device-compatibility fix as soon as it's done.
"Swap the ad-stuffed default interface for a clean one" can also move to other devices: domestic projectors (Dangbei, XGIMI), TV boxes, car head units, and the lock-screen-adjacent layers of domestic phones. Whether anyone has built these is unverified here, so search first before starting.

How to get stars: Launch on your own X and Weibo with a comparison image, then get it in front of Chinese GitHub recommendation accounts like GitHubDaily, and the people making AI-tool tutorials on Zhihu and Bilibili. That's how Aerial's first wave came in.

How early you need to be: Measure the distance from the original hit in days. Aerial took 3 days; similar projects that launched a week after CleanYourTV stalled at a few hundred stars.

What would show you misread this: If you ship a targeted version within three days of the next hit and the launch post gets tens of thousands of views, but you're still under a thousand stars after two weeks, then Aerial depended mainly on its author's persona and traffic plus the web-wide buzz from the CleanYourTV moment, and this playbook may not be repeatable by someone else.

GitHub repo ↗

Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report

Competitors

Name	Where	Launched	Scale	How it differs from this one
CleanYourTV (Gathin23/cleanyourtv)	Open source	2026-10-17	53,076 stars; the author says the launch post hit 8.4M views and got 412 media articles	It's an AI-agent ad-removal tool plus a minimal desktop, aimed globally, and it admits some China-model devices can't install the desktop. Aerial is desktop-only, but it focuses on boot takeover and standby keep-alive for domestic firmware, with a full tvOS-style interface.
Projectivy Launcher	Android	2020-08	1.79M installs on Play, about +7K in the last 69 days (googleplay library)	A major overseas third-party TV launcher with in-app purchases. It doesn't handle takeover on domestic devices and has no Chinese tutorials.
FLauncher	Open source	2021-06	Play 590k installs	A minimal open-source desktop. Not Apple-style, and not targeted at China-market models.
Monet Launcher	Android	2026-05	125K installs on Play; 318 stars on GitHub	Material You dynamic-color style, aimed at overseas users
Dangbei desktop / Huanxi desktop (including modified clean builds from users)	Other	Years ago	Domestic APK channels; unverified	Commercial desktops that show recommendations and ads; the clean builds are cracked, with unclear sources. Aerial is open-source, has no ads, and can be restored with one click.
Manufacturer-built desktops (Xiaomi PatchWall, TCL Leiniao)	Big-company features	—	The default desktops on domestic TVs	Exactly the full-screen recommendation feed and membership badges users want to escape
quiet-tv / OneTV / MarcoTV, etc.	Open source	2026-10-18 to 10-25	Dozens to 239 stars	Domestic TV desktops written with AI in the same period; their reach and polish trail by one to two orders of magnitude

Where users come from

Verified Platform event: CleanYourTV goes viral globally: 10-17 The CleanYourTV launch post's author says it got 8.4M views; 10-20 GitHubDaily's Chinese write-up on CleanYourTV notes that some China-model TVs can't have their desktop replaced
Verified The author's own X / Weibo accounts (71K followers): 10-20 The launch post got 76.1K views; the "300+ Star" post got 30.7K views, and commenters recommended it over CleanYourTV; it was cross-posted on Weibo and reposted by Sina
Verified Chinese tech accounts and tutorial content (Zhihu / Bilibili / CSDN / SMZDM / YouTube / reupload accounts): Zhihu WorkBuddy tutorial 10-23; Bilibili "CleanYourTV + Aerial" tutorial 10-24; "Live 3 days, 2.4K stars" article 10-22; GitHubDaily 11-01 did a dedicated feature; reupload accounts such as Namei Knowledge Base
Verified Tutorial content for AI agent tools: The README recommends pasting the prompt into WorkBuddy, Doubao desktop, Qwen, Trae, or Claude Code to install; desktop-swap tutorials for WorkBuddy and Qwen Office AI are posted on Zhihu, Bilibili, and X
Verified Secondary spread from frequent releases: 17 releases in 79 days; updates such as 1.20, 1.26, and Android 4.0+ support were reposted by Sina
Inferred GitHub trending: The repo was under 60 days old, and the data shows trending_days_any=0, so trending was not the source

pengchujin/aerial-tv (Aerial): why it took off

One-liner: CleanYourTV blew up globally in Oct 17 (by the author's own count, 8.4M views and 53k stars), and its blind spot is exactly Chinese TVs: no way to set the home screen, and standby gets killed. 「酱紫表」, a Chinese digital blogger with 70k followers on X, used AI to build a tvOS-style home screen for Xiaomi / TCL sets three days later (10-20), capturing the Chinese-speaking slice of this traffic wave.

1. Basic data

GitHub: created 2026-10-20; as of 11-06 it has 9,951 stars / 850 forks / 357 open issues (data card, github repo, 2026-11-06). When the report was written, the GitHub API showed 10,277.
Daily gains: 10-21 at 411 → 10-22 at 1,937 (peak single-day +1,526) → 10-24 at 3,784 → 10-28 at 7,141; since then about +300 a day. gain_7d 2,231, well below the 5,783 of the previous 7 days (data card).
Iteration is very fast: 17 commits and 753 releases in 79 days (v1.7 → v1.86). Contributions are mostly from the author (635 commits); other contributors have at most 23 commits (GitHub API, 2026-11-06).
Usage signal: APK downloads across 79 releases total about 110K, and the latest v1.86 had 3,329 downloads on its first day (GitHub API). Note that from version 1.32 onward there's an in-app update, so each upgrade by an existing user also counts as a download. That makes the number larger than the install count; the real install count is unverified.
Author: pengchujin / "Jiangzibiao" (酱紫表), with 71.3K followers on X (x.com/pengchujin, read 2026-11), same name on Weibo; media describe him as "a digital blogger whose earlier projects were mostly around Apple TV" (sina.cn repost). His other high-star GitHub repos are jzsub (1,036), tower (848), and v2rayDocker (829), older circumvention and tooling projects.

2. Competitors

Name	Where	Launched	Scale	How it differs from Aerial
CleanYourTV (Gathin23)	Open source	2026-10-17	53,076 stars; the README claims 450 TV models supported and 412 media articles; ranked #10-19 on the trendshift 10-25 weekly chart	It's an "AI-agent ad removal plus a built-in minimal desktop," aimed globally. Its README itself admits that "some China-model TCL units refuse to install any desktop." Aerial is desktop-only, but it specifically handles boot takeover on domestic devices and relaunching after standby kills, and its interface is more complete (tvOS style plus aerial-footage screensaver).
Community spin-offs from CleanYourTV (cleanyourtv-app 1,725, cleanyourtv-WebOS 432, cleanyourtv-ui 25)	Open source	From ¥10-21	See left	Following CleanYourTV, but not built for Chinese-market TVs
Projectivy Launcher	Android / Play	2020-08	1.79M installs, +7k in the last 69 days (googleplay library)	The mainstream overseas third-party TV launchers, with in-app purchases. Chinese-brand TVs hit the same problems: the HOME key isn't taken over, and standby kills the launcher.
FLauncher	Play / open source	2021-06	590K installs (Google Play library)	An open-source minimalist launcher with no adaptation for Chinese-brand TVs, and not Apple-styled.
Monet Launcher	Play / open source	2026-05	125k installs, +16k in the last 7 days (Google Play library); 318 GitHub stars	Uses Material You dynamic color, not a tvOS look, and not built for Chinese-brand TVs.
DangBei Launcher / HuanXi Launcher (including the user-modded "clean" versions)	Chinese APK	Years ago	Large install base in China, unverified	A commercial launcher that itself ships recommendations and ads. The "clean" versions are cracked builds of unclear origin.
AndroidTVLauncher (JackyAndroid)	Open source	2016	3,148 star	An old leanback sample, unmaintained
Domestic copycats (quiet-tv 239, OneTV 59, MarcoTV 28, Mengxin Launcher (Bilibili), Tigris, and others)	Open source / Bilibili	10-18 to 10-25	Dozens to hundreds of stars	Most were written with AI around the same time, and they're one to two orders of magnitude smaller in scale.
Built-in launchers from TV makers (Xiaomi PatchWall, TCL RayNeo, etc.)	Big-company features	—	The default desktops on domestic TVs	They're exactly the full-screen recommendation feeds and membership badges users want to escape.

Verdict: the "third-party TV launcher" category already exists, and there are million-scale products in it (Projectivy). The real gap is narrow: a launcher for China-market TVs that truly takes over boot and standby, looks good, and is free with no ads.

3. How users arrived (timeline)

10-17 platform event: The CleanYourTV author posted before-and-after results of using Claude Code to remove ads from his parents' TV. He reports 8.4M views (cleanyourtv README). "Using AI to clean TV ads" quickly became a web-wide topic.
10-20 10:16 UTC, author's own launch: Jiangzi-biao posted on X: "Used AI to build a clean 'Apple-style' launcher for Chinese TVs... supports automatic deployment by an Agent, auto-enabled on boot," with 4 comparison images. 76.1k views, 92 replies (x.com/pengchujin/status/2112488030581957085). 28 minutes later, GitHubDaily posted a Chinese introduction to CleanYourTV that specifically noted "some China-market TVs... the launcher can't be replaced" (x.com/GitHub_Daily/status/2112495201784828385). Demand in the Chinese-speaking community was lit, and the gap was named.
10-20 that night: The author posted "GitHub 300+ stars," 30.7k views. In the comments someone compared it directly to CleanYourTV: "For domestic Android TVs, I'd recommend Aerial for the launcher... it survives the standby kill of third-party apps and gets restarted by a guard." (x.com/pengchujin/status/2112566931157086623) The same day it was cross-posted on Weibo and reposted on sina.cn.
10-21 to 10-27 reprint window: Chinese platforms are reposting it widely and publishing tutorials:
- Zhihu: "Use WorkBuddy to give your TV a clean launcher, a near-perfect Apple TV substitute" (10-23)
- Denzii on X: "Replacing the launcher on a domestic TV with WorkBuddy" (10-21)
- Bilibili: "Install CleanYourTV + Aerial to optimize your TV with one click" (10-24), plus several more tutorials
- CSDN, Sohu, SMZDM, Hardcore APK, jamecling, and Newlearner channels
- YouTube: "Github 13k stars! AI wipes out TV ads" and others
- The article "Tianxia Ku Dianshi Guanggao + Tuiliu Jiu Yi Wen" (10-22) says "3 days after launch, 2.4K stars," and includes an install prompt for Agents.

The largest single-day increase was on 10-22 (+1,526). I couldn't confirm which post drove that.

Ongoing second wave from frequent updates: Each release was announced on Weibo / X with a changelog, reposted by sina: 1.20 single-row home screen, 1.26 Liquid Glass, 10-27 Android 4.0+ support. 11-01 GitHubDaily covered Aerial again separately (x.com/GitHub_Daily/status/2116742044270113009). Aggregator accounts such as the "Namei knowledge base" also reposted it ("breaking 9100 stars"). Overseas there were githunt Facebook videos, Instagram GitHub repost accounts, and TikTok @share1006.
The install method lowered the barrier, and the installing itself became content: The README recommends pasting a prompt into any Agent that can run commands (WorkBuddy, Doubao desktop, Qwen desktop, Trae, Claude Code, Codex), plus a one-line curl script. So "use [some AI] to replace your TV launcher" became content that users and creators of each AI tool could make (WorkBuddy and Qwen Office AI both have tutorials).

I found no evidence of ad spend, promotion, or chart-pushing. GitHub Trending only lists repos up to about 60 days old, and the data card shows trending_days_any=0, so the stars were not driven by Trending.

4. Why it took off

Timing: It launched on the same days as the web-wide "AI removes TV ads" wave sparked by CleanYourTV, and right when GitHubDaily pointed out that "China-market TV launchers can't be replaced." It filled that gap exactly.
Narrow positioning: The titles say "for Chinese TVs" and "Xiaomi, TCL" outright. Many Chinese users are bothered by boot ads, recommendation feeds, and membership badges. The install docs walk through ADB setup brand by brand (Xiaomi, TCL, Haier, OPPO, Sony BRAVIA...) and handle three concrete pain points on China-market firmware: HOME key takeover, boot into the launcher, and relaunching after standby kills it (including the aerial-guard companion APK).
Looks good, screenshots travel: A tvOS look, Apple TV's 114-segment aerial screensaver, and Liquid Glass effects. Side by side with the Xiaomi stock launcher, one image makes the point.
The author brought an audience: 71k followers on X plus Weibo, so the launch already had 76k views. No cold start.
Fast updates, responsive to users: 17 days, 79 releases. Many of the 357 issues were requests for device-model support. Fixes shipped in new releases, and each release was another reposting hook. It also goes back to Android 4.0 older TVs, widening the user base.
A workable path for users who want to stay: No root, no uninstalling system apps, one-command restore (bash -s restore), icon management via phone QR code, and in-app updates. People stay because they use their TV every day.

5. Differentiation

Compared with CleanYourTV: that project is "an AI agent workflow for removing ads plus a minimalist launcher," aimed globally, and the lack of China-market support is an acknowledged weakness. Aerial doesn't do ad removal ("boot ads are played by firmware and can't be removed"). It focuses only on the launcher layer and does it well, specializing in takeover and keep-alive on Chinese firmware. Compared with overseas launchers like Projectivy and FLauncher, it is in Chinese, has tutorials for Chinese brands, has an Apple look, and is fully free and open source.

The differentiation is why it took off: the approach itself wasn't new, since replacing the launcher was already possible. What it got right was offering a ready-made answer during the days everyone was watching "AI cleans TV ads," aimed at the largest Chinese user group that CleanYourTV didn't cover.

6. Visibility and copycats

Plenty of people have seen it: large Chinese tech accounts (GitHubDaily), Zhihu, Bilibili, CSDN, SMZDM, and Sina reposts have all covered it. It hasn't reached overseas mainstream media like TechCrunch, which covered CleanYourTV instead. No revenue (open source and free).
Copycats have already appeared, and there are many: forks like aerial-tv-skyworth (Skyworth edition), xinghe-desktop (Xinghe Launcher), and repackages on sites like Hardcore APK. Other domestic TV launchers built around the same time include quiet-tv (based on CleanYourTV), OneTV, MarcoTV, Mengxin Launcher, and Tigris. None has passed a few hundred stars so far.

7. What to borrow

Ride the wave: Within 72 hours of a global hit, take it to the local market or hardware it doesn't cover (China-market firmware). Put the audience and brand straight in the title.
Use an Agent as the installer: Write an agent.md so any AI that can run commands installs it for you. That removes hurdles like ADB. Users of each AI tool will also make "use X to replace your TV launcher" tutorials on their own.
Keep momentum with updates: Post a comparison screenshot on social media with every release.
The idea of "replace the ad-polluted default interface with a clean one" can extend to other devices: Chinese projectors (DangBei, XGIMI), car infotainment, TV boxes, smart speaker screens, and the left-side home screen on Chinese phones.

8. Still unclear

10-22 daily +1,526. Couldn't break down which channel drove it (Zhihu, Bilibili, a WeChat Official Account, or X reposts); Zhihu pages are rate-limited, so the post body couldn't be read.
Real install base: the 110k APK downloads include repeat downloads from in-app updates.
Unclear whether the author plans to monetize (currently "permanently open source, free, no ads"), and unclear whether manufacturers could use firmware updates to block HOME takeover or ADB.
Growth has slowed from roughly +1,000 a day to roughly +300 a day. How long the heat lasts is uncertain.

Sources

github.com/pengchujin/aerial-tv (README, releases, contributors; GitHub API 2026-11-06)
x.com/pengchujin/status/2112488030581957085 (launch post, 76.1k views)
x.com/pengchujin/status/2112566931157086623 (300+ stars, 30.7k views)
x.com/GitHub_Daily/status/2112495201784828385 (Chinese introduction to CleanYourTV, noting China-market TVs can't swap launchers)
x.com/GitHub_Daily/status/2116742044270113009 (11-01 introducing Aerial)
github.com/Gathin23/cleanyourtv (8.4M views, 412 articles, #1 on the weekly chart)
3g.sina.com.cn/news/detail/5356238419526587.html (Weibo repost)
zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/2096932457757070185 (WorkBuddy tutorial, 10-23)
www.bilibili.com/video/BV1pTHP66EVs/ (Bilibili tutorial, 10-24)
post.m.smzdm.com/zz/p/anv9rop3/ and post.m.smzdm.com/p/a70pg5zo/ (SMZDM)
Google Play library app_profile (install counts for Projectivy, FLauncher, Monet)

This article was written by AI from public data and the data we collect daily. Numbers are sourced, and inferences are labeled.