Google prepping 'Android TV' set-top box with stripped-down interface, voice input and notifications

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 152
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Now here's a company that can't make up its mind.
  • Reply 22 of 152
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,250member
    rogifan wrote: »
    Then I'm not sure what the BOOM is for.
    Nor do I
  • Reply 23 of 152
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    gatorguy wrote: »
    Nor do I

    I just took it as he was BOOMing the previous post by pazuzu.
  • Reply 24 of 152
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,097member

    But the media and iHaters (some infesting this forum) all harped about GoogleTV (years ago) being the next "AppleTV Killer".  Where are they now?  



    This is not a "new" contender.  Just lipstick on a pig.  Google will put it out, it will suck big time, and then they'll hope that people forget about yet another blunder this one-hit wonder product.

  • Reply 25 of 152
    It "seems" to me that with regard to updating the Apple TV (and even to an extent launching the iWatch) Apple is letting all these companies fire their warning shots and establish themselves where they are so when Apple comes out with their update/new product there will be no mistaking where the innovation lies. Way back in 2006 and going into 2007 some of the same cries (even on this forum) were dropped for Apple to come out with their [B]thing[/B] sooner rather than later to ward off the competitors trying to one-up them. Hopefully, history will be rhyming this year.

    And hopefully this time they'll be able to stop the slavish copying after the fact.
  • Reply 26 of 152
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member

    All these streamer boxes are basically the same. Once the movie starts, you cannot tell the difference between them. The only differentiating factor is the menu system, which are all about the same too. FireTV has voice search, Google will certainly have voice search and Apple will as well with the next revision. I fail to see the difference except for brand loyalty. As soon as someone comes out with 4K then all the others will follow in short order. It is really about the decoder chips being available in quantity at an affordable price, before that will happen.

  • Reply 27 of 152
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    mstone wrote: »
    All these streamer boxes are basically the same. Once the movie starts, you cannot tell the difference between them. The only differentiating factor is the menu system, which are all about the same too. FireTV has voice search, Google will certainly have voice search and Apple will as well with the next revision. I fail to see the difference except for brand loyalty.

    The implementation and execution will be vastly different just as it is now with the Apple TV, Roku, and Google TV… as well as with Scientific Atlanta and Motorola digiboxes, and TiVo.
  • Reply 28 of 152
    aaronjaaronj Posts: 1,595member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post

     

    All these streamer boxes are basically the same. Once the movie starts, you cannot tell the difference between them. The only differentiating factor is the menu system, which are all about the same too. FireTV has voice search, Google will certainly have voice search and Apple will as well with the next revision. I fail to see the difference except for brand loyalty. As soon as someone comes out with 4K then all the others will follow in short order. It is really about the decoder chips being available in quantity at an affordable price, before that will happen.


     

    Well, it's also about a couple of other things:

     

    1) Content.

     

    2) Affordable 4K monitors.

  • Reply 29 of 152
    So is Google going to log all the viewing data into the user's gmail and search profile. That's going to cross the creepy line.
  • Reply 30 of 152
    bugsnwbugsnw Posts: 717member

    The only thing Google hasn't tried to clone from Apple is Steve Jobs himself. Crap...I just gave them an idea........

  • Reply 31 of 152
    There's no great product or capability differentiation that currently exists among the competing suite of set-top boxes to include the Apple TV. Unless there is a breakthrough capability, I fail to see that any device regardless of brand will make a dent in the existing marketplace. If people say that Apple is not innovating then this charge also holds true for Google and Amazon- their TV devices are ripe-offs of existing r=technology. I'm waiting foe Apple to break this paradigm on the 2 June WWDC.
  • Reply 32 of 152
    ws11ws11 Posts: 159member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DroidFTW View Post

     

     

    This can't be right.  The Verge needs to get thier stuff together.  DED, in a very lengthy article written almost a year ago, assured us that Google was ditching Android and trying to distance themselves from it.


     

     

     

    Typical DED clickbait.

  • Reply 33 of 152
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    future man wrote: »
    There's no great product or capability differentiation that currently exists among the competing suite of set-top boxes to include the Apple TV. Unless there is a breakthrough capability, I fail to see that any device regardless of brand will make a dent in the existing marketplace. If people say that Apple is not innovating then this charge also holds true for Google and Amazon- their TV devices are ripe-offs of existing r=technology. I'm waiting foe Apple to break this paradigm on the 2 June WWDC.
    i am not sure Apple will break that paradigm. The television experience is not one which offers much scope for groundbreaking innovation. The Apple TV is more about the ecosystem and services. But you do need new hardware to market your goods, and each new iteration needs to introduce new technology. That is a paradigm that will not change.
  • Reply 34 of 152
    emesemes Posts: 239member

    I'm not sure that's what the interface will look like. I think Microsoft actually patented that look.

     

    EDIT: Yup, here it is http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-granted-us-patent-for-the-windows-8-start-screen

  • Reply 35 of 152
    misamisa Posts: 827member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    It's understandable why Gogole would ditch GoogleTV. They created a horrible product and they are now scaling it back to a more realistic concept with a new name, but Chromecast has a modicum of success so why create this competitor to it. We know that Chromecast is really built from Android, not Chrome OS, so what is the key difference here? The HW? I don't get how this is going to help Chromecast going forward unless they are also ditching it in favour of Android TV.
    It's not going to help anyone. I don't know of anyone using Chromecast.
    rogifan wrote: »
    Boom what? That Google leaked this right after Amazon announced their box? That the UI looks like Xbox? That's it's basically just copying what every other STB/console device does? Honestly I'd be curious to know how many people come home at night and curse their TV interface. It seems tech companies these days are tripping all over each other trying to find what the next big thing is. Yet none of them are doing anything that makes you go WOW or holy shit. It's all variants of the same things.

    Though now that we're getting notifications on our phone, wrist and TV I expect Google to design a bathroom mirror that displays notifications. and maybe showers and refrigerators too. Make sure every minute of the day wherever you are you get notifications.

    At what point do people start switching off?!?

    Here's what needs to happen:
    If I say "I want to watch X-men", I want the device to query Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Crackle, Crunchyroll, etc for all shows that are "x-men" and return that in an unified interface. The Xbox 360 kinda does that. Not very well though.
    Second I want a unified interface in which I can stop, play, skip, fast forward, rewind, record** and replay** anything that can be plugged into or streamed from this device. Hell I'll buy the first device that lets me record from any HDMI source and stream it to my Apple Toys. If I can't get a unified interface from the box, I at least want it streamed to a box that does.

    I don't see anyone doing either. All the SmartTV's out there are horrible garbage that used Google's half baked GoogleTV(Android), so I don't see how Google can make it any worse or better without scrapping Android altogether, may as well scrap Android now before anyone actually uses it and we end up with another WindowsXP-security-swiss-cheese like current Android.

    I'm not buying any TV boxes from anyone, nor am I going to pay the premium for a SmartTV until Apple shows it's hand. The current TV environment is a mess of incompatible junk that sucks on a HDMI port for it's single-purpose software (iTunes, Neflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc) and is otherwise only slightly more useful than cable/DTH boxes (which are super-slow, and can't stream to devices)

    **I'm fully aware HDCP will not want this, but I'm not saying break HDCP, just use push it to the playback device.
  • Reply 36 of 152
    sumjuansumjuan Posts: 27member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pmz View Post



    GoogleTV, Chromecast, Android TV....





    That company is a disaster.



    Nexus Q???

  • Reply 37 of 152
    spacepowerspacepower Posts: 208member
    ws11 wrote: »


    Typical DED clickbait.

    Thanks for your educational comment
    gatorguy wrote: »
    The big difference is Google didn't announce anything.

    While I like some of your intelligent comments on patents, you are being disingenuous thinking, Google didn't purposely announce this the same week,
  • Reply 38 of 152
    ws11ws11 Posts: 159member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Spacepower View Post





    Thanks for your educational comment

     

    You're welcome.  

  • Reply 39 of 152
    lilsmirklilsmirk Posts: 38member
    rogifan wrote: »
    Though now that we're getting notifications on our phone, wrist and TV I expect Google to design a bathroom mirror that displays notifications. and maybe showers and refrigerators too. Make sure every minute of the day wherever you are you get notifications.
    They got you covered. The Verge reports that, in Android TV,
    The Verge wrote: »
    Google is encouraging developers to only use notifications in very limited cases.
  • Reply 40 of 152
    crossladcrosslad Posts: 527member
    mstone wrote: »
    All these streamer boxes are basically the same. Once the movie starts, you cannot tell the difference between them. The only differentiating factor is the menu system, which are all about the same too. FireTV has voice search, Google will certainly have voice search and Apple will as well with the next revision. I fail to see the difference except for brand loyalty. As soon as someone comes out with 4K then all the others will follow in short order. It is really about the decoder chips being available in quantity at an affordable price, before that will happen.

    But Apple TV is the only device that lets you mirror you iPhone/iPad content on you TV.
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