Android TV reportedly in development, coming soon

Long rummored but never seen, Android TV has finally been spotted. According to The Verge, who claim to have been forwarded internal documents from within Google, Android TV is coming. The platform is going to be re-imagined as a media platform for your TV, not on bringing Android as it sits on your tablet or smartphone to the bigger screen.

The Verge goes on to cite the documents as noting “Android TV is an entertainment interface, not a computing platform. It’s all about finding and enjoying content with the least amount of friction. It will be “cinematic, fun, fluid, and fast.” The platform will support voice input and notifications, much like Amazon’s recently released Fire TV. While the source hints at it being a set-top box, there is no firm word on a form factor yet.

Aside from their own media offerings, Google is said to be working with major third party Developers like Vevo, Hulu, Netflix, and Pandora. There is also talk of game integration. The platform, which you can see in images below, doesn’t look like Android. It’s a fresh platform for Google — not like Google TV, and absolutely different from Chromecast.

This is a developing story, but an interesting one. Google TV isn’t necessarily “dead”, and we have the Chromecast. An Android TV device would complicate matters further, unless Google ends the Google TV charade once and for all. From there, we’d like to see an Android TV plug straight into a Chromecast, bringing a singular HDMI connection to multiple devices.

As it stands, Android TV doesn’t sound much more compelling than the competition. It offers the same content, from the same providers, and borrows some utility from Fire TV. The difference is that Android TV is likely to be open source, whereas the others just aren’t.

Source: The Verge