You get no points for seeing this one coming. The new music purchasing and streaming options unveiled in the Google Music presentation are already available to all Android users in the US, and now they’re rolling out to Google TV as well. Both the Android Market and Google’s official Music app have been updated, allowing purchasing, streaming and sharing of individual tracks and albums through Google TV. The additional functionality should help Google TV to further compete with Apple TV, even if both are somewhat lacking in the product name department.
According to the official screenshot, the interface for Google Music has an extra coat of polish, allowing it to easily be used from couch-standard distance. All the features of the smartphone and web player are present, including the nifty new “pin” option, which automatically keeps selected songs, albums or playlists synced across all your Android devices. Between the Google Music update and an upgrade to Honeycomb, not to mention the long-awaited addition of Android Market access, Google TV is starting to become the all-in-one media hub it set out to be last year.
Google is promising constant updates both to the Google TV platform and the Google Music app and service. The former could definitely use it: with Logitech bowing out of Google TV altogether, the future of the system relies on Sony, and perhaps next year, LG as well. With Google integrating so many different media sources, here’s hoping it becomes a much more viable option going forward.
The Google Music App won’t scroll worth a €¥£!>.