Tag: android tv

Google is bringing mobile games to larger screens.

The massive internet company is not giving up the television playing field to Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV and has its own plans to attract users with Android TV, which, among other features, enables users to engage in mobile gaming on a big screen.

Android TV was announced at Google’s I/O developer conference.

The company held its annual I/O developer event last week in San Francisco on Wednesday, June 25, 2014. During the event, they made several announcements, including their Android TV platform, which Google has designed to work specifically with television sets and is powered by its open source operating system. This is what sets it apart from Amazon and Apple’s TV products.

Android TV is a platform, not a product. Google intends to work with different vendors to have its platform directly integrated into television set top boxes from Razer, Asus, etc. and into TV sets from companies such as Sony.

Android TV will enable users to access and use mobile apps on their TV screens. This means that mobile games will be an accessible option. This is big news, considering 70% of the over 1 billion devices that run Android across the globe, access a minimum of one game during the course of one month. Furthermore, ever since Google announced in 2013 the hub app for Android-based gaming, in the last six month, 100 million users have signed up.

Android TV could have a significant impact on the mobile gaming industry.

The games that were demoed on Android TV during the conference were controlled using Android tablets. Although Google made no mention of making game controllers, it is leaving this option open to its hardware partners.

According to Greg Hartrell, Google Play Games Lead Product Manager, “when the Android TV platform gets adopted, OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] are going to push out a game pad kind of form factor.” He added that “OEMs will bring a variety of different form factors. They’ll continue to grow the ecosystem.”

Google believes that mobile gaming has room to grow on a technological level, as well as on a physical level – beyond the screens of smartphones and tablets. One of the advantages of Android TV is that there is a vast amount of content on Google Play. It will also encourage developers to think about how their games will not only appear on phones and tablets, but on large screens, too.

The experience as it once was known will now been changed completely and forever.

The experience that was offered as Google TV is will soon come to an end as these gadgets and the overall service that they provide a new upgrade that has transformed into Android TV.

This, according to several reports that are based on sources that are close to Google.

While this officially remains a rumor, as the search engine giant has yet to confirm any plans regarding its gadgets, it has been confirmed by a number of other sources close to the matter that Android TV should be considered to be a done deal.

This alteration in the gadgets and the service is considered to be more than just a change in name.

According to Gigaom’s Janko Roettgers, “For Google TV, this is more than just a name change.” Going on to explain the gadgets and the platform, Roettgers said that “The TV platform was launched three years ago based on Honeycomb, the Android version that also powered Google’s first steps into the tablet world. Google’s latest tablets now run Android 4.3, but Google TV is still stuck on Android version 3.2, which makes it much harder for developers to bring their apps to the TV screen.”

This suggests that it’s not just the packaging for the gadgets that will look completely different but that the entire platform will be altered so that the viewer will be using the television in the same way that he or she would be using any other Android based device, such as a tablet or smartphone. It won’t be stuck on an ancient version of the operating system but will be propelled forward so that apps can be enjoyed on the television screen, as well.

Earlier in 2013, Google had announced that it would be bringing its Google TV gadgets up to the most recent Android version, so that it would make it possible for developers to be able to use the same APIs that are available on smartphones and tablets.

The Android 4.2 upgrade did receive its official announcement for the third quarter of this year, but the rumor is that LG will be updating their own Google TV gadgets later on in October. Other manufacturers will be following suit over the next few months. That said, it’s not likely that this will occur before the end of 2014.