Android TV: Google TV gets a new name
This could be the end of an era.
When the Android-based Google TV project was first announced, we saw it as an exciting opportunity to revolutionize an industry. Android revolutionized what we can see and do on our phone screens with Android, and Google could leverage that same technology to revolutionize our experience with the largest, most beautiful, and centrally located screen in our house: the television.
This could still happen. In fact, we think it WILL happen. But if it does, it’s not likely to bare the Google TV name. GigaOM is reporting that the product is being rebranded as Android TV.
Perhaps it should have been named Android TV all along. Perhaps Google pushed the entertainment strong arm too hard and thought they’d better be able to create an entire experience that included the Play Store, Google Music, and more. But Google TV was built on Android all along and the company has long made efforts to merge the codebase, initially Android-based but separate.
Some are suggesting this shows Google giving way to Chromecast as a better solution than Google TV or Android TV. I don’t believe that’s the case at all, although Android and Chrome clearly have some head butting in their future.
We’ve got no clue where this leaves Google TV, whether Android TV will become a new flagship, if Google has some huge TV related announcements that this news precedes, or if this is the slow disintegration of Google’s efforts into thin air.
One thing is for sure: it creates another interesting unknown about the future of a very viable tech innovation/revolution… and those are exactly the types of stories we love to follow.
What do you think? What will happen of Google TV? Of Android TV? And of Chrome and Chromecast?
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br14nw
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http://hughisaacs2.googlepages.com/ Hugh Isaacs II
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Erik Smith
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Erik Smith
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