According to a report in The Verge, Google is set to launch Android TV. It’s not the first time for the search giant to make a bid to dominate the TV screen. In 2010, it launched Google TV with an ambition to combine “the best of the web with the best of TV”. Despite Google’s claims that TV manufacturers and viewers would welcome the platform with open arms, it’s been clearly a flop. In a Gigaom report in Oct 2013, Google’s plans to say goodbye to Google TV and replace it with something more android-focused was mentioned.
According to documents obtained by The Verge, Android TV isn’t an attempt to turn your TV into a tablet or a smartphone. It’s going to be all about entertainment. “Android TV is an entertainment interface, not a computing platform,” writes Google. “It’s all about finding and enjoying content with the least amount of friction.” It will be “cinematic, fun, fluid, and fast.” The Verge report says “Google’s new vision for Android TV is less ambitious and easier to understand.
The company is calling for developers to build extremely simple TV apps for an extremely simple set-top-box interface.
While Android still lives under the hood, the interface will consist of a set of scrolling “cards” that represent movies, shows, apps, and games sitting on a shelf.
You use a remote control with a four-way directional pad to scroll left and right through different suggestions, or up and down through different categories of content, each with their own shelves.
Much like on other set top boxes, each item will be like a miniature movie poster or book cover, and you’ll pick the one you want. The controller will also have Enter, Home, and Back buttons to help get around, and there will be “optional” game controllers. Android TV will also support voice input and notifications — though Google is encouraging developers to only use notifications in very limited cases. In total, Android TV is remarkably similar to Amazon’s just-released, Android-based Fire TV.”
(img source – the verge)