Google announced yesterday the launch of Android 12 for mobile phones, and also for Smart TV . The improvements that are included for smart TVs are different, making it easier and more comfortable to use the system from Smart TVs. After announcing that they have already reached 80 million monthly active users with Android TV, they have published the news that will come to the next version.
Although Google renamed it Google TV, the base operating system is still Android TV . Google TV is now available on the Chromecast with Google TV and Sony televisions, coming soon to TCL as well. Android TV already has more than 8,000 applications available , without missing any of the important ones on the market.
With Google TV , the company has wanted to combine the content of all streaming platforms in the same interface, thanks to which we do not have to worry about which platform has such content. We just have to search and reproduce it (assuming we are subscribed). In addition, it offers suggestions based on all that content that we see.
Improvements when using the mobile to control the Smart TV
The first major improvement in this version is found in the content casting function from mobile to TV. This is one of the most convenient ways to go from viewing content on your mobile to doing it on the big screen. However, we could currently only see it on one screen, and if we went to another room, we couldn’t pass it.
That changes with Stream Transfer . The function is really easy to use, where just by pressing the Google Assistant button and saying “continue viewing content on X site”, where X site will be the name that we have associated with the screen to which we want to send it, be it a Smart TV or a speaker with a screen.
The second great novelty is found in the interaction between the Smart TV and the remote control, where we can use the mobile to completely control the TV remotely with gestures as if it were a touchpad, in addition to having real-time controls of the screen. The function will be included in Android 12 natively.
It will also be easier for developers to test if their application works well on Google TV , since now two different versions of the emulator are included: one for Google TV and one for Android 11. We also have a remote that emulates the Google reference for not having to use another controller and being able to emulate normal use by the interface. This is useful, for example, to check how Google Assistant interacts with the application when the button is pressed on the controller. For developers there is also Firebase Test Lab, which allows you to run apps in the cloud emulating Android TV to test them more quickly.
Android TV 12 Beta 1 is now available for the ADT-3 , the device developers use to create new apps on Android TV. It can be downloaded at this link .
As we see, Android TV does not receive great news as it usually happens with the mobile version. Since Android 8.0 Oreo there have been no major developments at the level of design or functionality in Android TV, since a high level of sophistication has been reached, and where the only thing that remains to improve is performance.