14 DAY TRIAL // Google is working on a renaissance of sorts for Google TV. It's also working on enabling developers to create apps for Google TV which will show up in the Android Market, something Google promised from day one.
Now, the company is finally making good on that promise, or at least part of it, with the launch of a preview version of a Google TV add-on for the Android SDK.
In essence, the new tool will finally enable developers to start working on Google TV apps, or on optimizing their existing ones for use on the devices.
"We are excited to announce a preview of the Google TV add-on for the Android SDK. With the upcoming OS update to Honeycomb, Google TV devices will be Android compatible," Ambarish Kenghe, Google TV product manager, announced.
"That means developers can build great new Android apps for TV, optimize existing mobile or tablet apps for TV, and distribute those apps through Android Market," he said.
The add-on is in the early stages and is not complete yet. It doesn't replicate all of the features in Google TV, but should be enough for developers to start testing their apps, all of the core functionality is there.
Developers can also run their apps in a Google TV emulator, but this only works on Linux systems with KVM virtualization.
Because of the hardware virtualization capabilities enabled by KVM, Google was able to build a Google TV emulator relatively easy, but support for other operating systems will take longer.
Once Google TV users upgrade to the new version, based on Android Honeycomb, they will be able to access the Android Market and will see all of the apps that meet the criteria for Google TV.
That said, it falls on the developers to correctly list the requirements of their apps so that they are not displayed to Google TV users if they are unable to run properly on the devices.