Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Google is making it easier to add streaming video services to Android TV

By
Sundar Pichai stands in front of a Google logo at Google I/O 2021.
This story is part of our complete Google I/O coverage

Android TV is rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with in the smart TV landscape. At its annual Google I/O conference, the company revealed that Android TV is now being used by more than 140 pay-TV operators worldwide, and six out of the top 10 smart TV manufacturers are working with Google on Android TV devices, according to Variety. While no major updates for Android TV were announced, Google has said it’s going to make it a lot easier for people to add new streaming video apps to their Android TV devices, whether it’s a set-top box or a smart TV.

At the moment, if you want to add a video streaming service to Android TV, the process is somewhat cumbersome: You search for the app on the Play Store, download it, install it, open it, sign up for the service if you haven’t already done so, and/or enter your account details. In the future, it could be drastically simplified, as Google is going to let app publishers combine the sign-up, install, and log-in, into a single step.

Recommended Videos

It’s an approach that will bring the Android TV experience closer to the “channel” model favored by Amazon, Roku, and soon, Apple, in which new video services can be added through your existing credentials with these companies. As Variety points out, with Google’s interpretation of the channel model, publishers are still using their own apps and aren’t being forced to provide their streaming content within a third-party experience that they can’t control. Given that Android TV now has content from more than 1,000 streaming content providers, this change could significantly reduce the friction involved in the relationship between video providers and their subscribers.

The Android TV Play Store is also getting a facelift of sorts, as Google works on improving people’s ability to discover these streaming apps, plus the thousands of other apps available on the platform. A new version of the store will launch later this year, which will offer a much more appealing visual layout that uses the whole screen for app categories, instead of the current horizontally-scrolling app ribbons.

As to whether or not Android TV will be staying in lock-step with the rest of the Android ecosystem, it appears that the TV team is charting its own course. When asked whether Google would upgrade Android TV to Android Q, Android TV head Shalini Govil-Pai said, “We don’t necessarily need to be on the same timeline.”

There was no discussion about Google’s recent experiments with adding advertising to the Android TV home screen, something that viewers haven’t been thrilled about.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
Sling TV adds arcade games on Fire TV and Android TV
Sling Arcade on Sling TV.

If you've ever been watching live TV and thought to yourself, "What I'd really like to do right now, as I'm watching a basketball game, is also play some Tetris," Sling TV now has you covered. Enter Sling Arcade.

As the name implies, Sling Arcade is a smattering of arcade-style games (ask your parents, kids) that are not only available in the Sling TV app as a standalone feature, but you also can play multiview style, with the game you're playing side by side with whatever you're watching. Or if you want to play full-screen, just hit the "Arcade" playlist on the Sling TV app home screen.

Read more
YouTube TV tips and tricks: how to get the most out Google’s live TV service
YouTube TV app icon on Apple TV.

There’s a reason YouTube TV has found itself the leader in live-streaming video. In fact, it has about twice as many subscribers to its cable-TV replacement as the next biggest platform. And. among other reasons like price, reliability, and abundance of channels, it is just packed with features.
In fact, YouTube TV has so many features tucked away in there that you’ll be forgiven if you don’t spot them all at first. But we’ve done the legwork. We’ve watched hours and hours of YouTube TV. Weeks and months, really. We’ve flipped all the buttons. We’ve pressed all the switches. (Wait — reverse that.) And we’ve put together a list of what we think are the most important — if not always obvious — YouTube TV tips and tricks. And we're not just talking about NFL Sunday Ticket.
This isn’t everything. There are still a few other places to explore in the settings menu, as well as when you’re watching shows and movies. But these are the YouTube TV tips and tricks we absolutely think you must know.

Record a show to watch later

Read more
Everyone is missing the point on streaming video
App icons on the Apple TV homescreen.

Yes, there are a million ways to watch streaming video. And that's the way it should be. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends

There's a tremendous amount of gnashing of teeth anytime a streaming service increases its prices. There's a scramble by media outlets to update SEO-friendly posts and quickly offer alternatives, as if this was all a zero-sum game and you're able to watch the same things on all the services. Or maybe it's time to go back to cable altogether because streaming video is just too darn expensive and it's too hard to find what you want to watch. We're in one of those times in which it feels like all the services are increasing all the prices, to the extent that Engadget has plainly asked "Is streaming even still worth it?"

Read more