I can\'t find in the formal documentation of AWS Kinesis any explicit reference between TRIM_HORIZON and the checkpoint, and also
From GetShardIterator documentation (which lines up with my experience using Kinesis):
In the request, you can specify the shard iterator type
AT_TIMESTAMPto read records from an arbitrary point in time,TRIM_HORIZONto cause ShardIterator to point to the last untrimmed record in the shard in the system (the oldest data record in the shard), orLATESTso that you always read the most recent data in the shard.
Basically, the difference is whether you want to start from the oldest record (TRIM_HORIZON), or from "right now" (LATEST - skipping data between latest checkpoint and now).