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Android TV Now Claiming Over 100 Pay TV Operator Partners Worldwide (multichannel.com)
Google's Android TV platform has now been deployed by more than 100 pay TV operators around the world, the technology's top product manager told news outlet MCN. From a report: According to Shalini Govil-Pai, senior director of product management for Android TV, the platform designed to provide access to over-the-top apps on digital video players, is now being used by "tens of millions" of consumers, primarily in Europe and Asia. Govil-Pai said that around half of Android TV users are derived from the platform's operator partners. The open Android TV platform allows operator subscribers to access the Google Play store for popular apps, including Netflix and YouTube, as well as more niche OTT services, such as virtual MVPD Philo, which just launched an app for the platform.
The thing seems to be TV set integration. You're not buying a set top box, but a TV that has android TV built it.
I just had to configure one such TV, and it's quite a mess right now. It's literally an android TV on ARM system with "TV apps" as default, as well as a lot of pre-installed pay TV garbage. Want to watch TV? It's actually an app. Want to configure channels? It's actually an app.
You don't really realise this at first, because they try to make menus look like normal TV menus, but once you get into the OS and start looking around, you realise that essentially every normal TV function is just an android app. Even remote support is just an autostarted android app.
The advantage is that you do get a lot of customization capability with android, as well as access to a very crippled version of google play. Which is still a whole lot better than your typical "smart" TV, but absolute garbage compared to a typical android phone, much less a full fledged PC.
Disadvantage is that this is pretty raw android. You get occasional crashes, really crappy compatibility issues, and most of the stuff on google play for android TV is just wrapper apps for "pay to stream" paid TV channels of various kinds. You sorta, kinda can sideload actual full on apps after fucking around a bit. Use "downloader" app on the play store to download and run what you actually want to use after you give permission to install things from non-play store sources for example. But since you only have remote for the UI control, apps that aren't intended for android TV use tend to be very clunky to use, if they're even usable in the first place.
Overall, I think the best way to go is still to just buy a cheap non "smart" TV, and if you want internet etc capability to go with it, just buy a cheap laptop and hook it up to another HDMI port on said cheap TV. Best of both worlds. Android TV set just seems like too much of an intentionally crippled system to get you to pay for paid TV apps.