[I/O 2014]Android TV

Almost

Android TV

home
Netflix support oh yeah!

Search

Search is the main emphasis here. The expectation is that you will search by voice for whatever you’re looking for. This search emphasis also means that you have on TV access to google searches. You can search for “oscar nominated movies from 2002” or get information about the actors in your movies, etc.

Casting

Being a google device, it has what seems to be the equivalent of a built in chromecast. The demo was just Google Play Music, but I assume other apps would work as well.

Installation

This is the first tailored Android that doesn’t install through the phone. When Android L launches, an Android TV specific play store will launch as well.

Partners

There are some big names backing Android TV already
Sony - 2014
Sharp & TPVision - 2015

A wierder partner, NVIDIA, brings TK1 to Android TVs so that the TV itself can do “console style gaming” - more likely, just the slightly more graphics intensive casual games that we already see on Android.

home

Almost

I’m kind of surprised that this is the thread that mostly flew under the radar.

Android TV actually caught me a bit off guard and I was pleasantly surprised with what it is.

First, the UI actually seems really well done. Being google and knowing context helps make the home screen work really well. Granted that I don’t use Google Play Movies, I’m not sure how much use I’d make of the content suggestions (or how accurate they would even be), but maybe it’d give me some inspiration to look up those titles on Netflix :P

The second thing that I really liked about this was that google search is first class. Open menu -> “ok google” -> get whatever info you wanted. I could see myself using this all the time for when I think I recognize an actor from a different movie. Or even to get world cup group stats right on my TV!

Third is casting. I like the idea of a chromecast, but I don’t know if I’d go out of my way to get one. If it’s part of my TV, though, I’d use that.

One thing I didn’t mention in the original post is that Android TV does not need and Android phone. In the keynote, he controlled it with that beautiful red nexus 5 (:heart_eyes:), but he did mention that it needs “just a dpad and voice input”. I’d expect the TVs to come with these simple remotes.

Definitely going to be considering one of these next time I’m looking for a TV (which probably won’t be for a few years)