Google to announce Android TV platform at Google I/O conference

Google has long been rumored to replace Google TV with Android TV, a new crack at the home media market with more roots in its mobile OS and less of a separate focus, but a new report from GigaOM today suggests we’ll see it very soon; in fact, it’s apparently set to make its debut at the I/O developer conference taking place at the end of this month.

The Android TV platform isn’t a specific piece of hardware but is instead a software effort that will work with gadgets from OEM partners including LG and others. According to GigaOM, Android TV’s key focus will be on simplicity, which will be reflected in the user interface. Key to that is something the company has internally been calling Pano. The idea behind Pano is that apps can surface individual pieces of content right on the home screen in a card-like fashion so that users can browse movies, TV shows and other types of media as soon as they turn on an Android TV.

Content will be presented in a series of cards that can be browsed horizontally, and each movie or TV show episode has deep links into publisher’s apps, giving users the option to start playback right away. That’s different from the traditional smart TV experience, where users generally first have to launch an app from a publisher, and then browse that apps catalog before they can play a title.

Google has some advantages, including a likely willingness to work with OEMs to build this kind of thing directly into television sets as well as inexpensive Internet-enabled dongles. Android TV’s main focus is on gaming, aside from content discovery and watching content. Basically it’s going to be going head-to-head with the Fire TV which Amazon announced a few months ago. Hopefully Google has learned from Ouya’s mistakes with their console over the past year or so. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for a worthy competitor from Google for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, etc. Android TV is going to be really slim and light-weight, it’s not meant to compete with Chromecast, but provide a bigger and better experience, for those that want more out of a set-top box than the Chromecast provides.

This is going to be very interesting to see, especially in how it compares to the competition. Knowing Google, it’ll probably be priced pretty cheap. Probably around the same price as the Fire TV from Amazon. Which I think would make it a really big seller, not to mention all the Google Play Services being available on the Android TV compared to the other set top boxes out there.