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Google TV Is Dead, May Be Reincarnated as Android TV

Google's beleaguered TV platform may still have a future, but not with its current name

Oct 11, 2013 07:33 GMT  ·  By
The Google TV brand is probably dead
   The Google TV brand is probably dead

It's been rather obvious for a few months, though only if you bothered to look, that Google TV is dead. There's no official announcement or anything like that and the software is still fine and well, but the brand is dead. Google and its partners haven't been using it for the past few months, and no one has uttered the name "Google TV" recently.

GigaOM found that partners are sometimes calling it Android TV, but that name may not be the final one. For now, all new devices that are running Google TV have been labeled as having "Google services for your TV," for example the new Sony Bravia TV stick launched last month.

But Google TV, as a platform, still has a future. For one, it's getting a major update with the move to Android 4.2 that’s coming soon and, from then on, it should be able to keep up with new Android releases.

However, the initial Google TV idea is dead. One the one hand, manufacturers will have a lot more freedom both in what the devices can be (i.e. have a full keyboard remote or not) and what pieces of the software they can include. Initially, Google TV required support for both live TV content and web content.

But new boxes may simply be able to focus on Internet streaming, a market that's already full of competitors. A simpler Google (or Android) TV device may prove a lot more successful than any of the attempts so far.

In fact, Google already has an example to go by, its own Chromecast. The simple streaming device is nothing like Google TV, apart from the fact that you plug it into a TV. There's no UI, no peripherals, nothing to configure. It's simply a dongle that lets you stream video from your Android phone or tablet.

The Chromecast has been hugely successful; it's the top selling device on Amazon. It's unclear what this means for the future of Google TV. Again, the two platforms are not direct competitors. And others have already tried to bring Android to the TV. So, a more flexible Google TV, which makes more use of its Android base, can still be appealing. And Google can't really give up on the TV, as it can't afford to miss out.