I want to start by saying the views and arguments on this page are mine and mine alone, based on my real life experiences with both Google TV & Android TV. nb: Google TV is just a 'better' version of Android TV, with Google deliberatly crippling standard Android TV to make Google TV look better and more luxurious, its all just the same base system for both.
I like Android, on a phone or tablet, its a great OS and you can do many wonderful things with it. Android TV however, is complete crap, with only a handful of select apps working. I have posted many times on the Google Help Community, telling Google how bad their Android TV is, but every post either gets locked out or blocked before anyone can see them.
** Google can block and delete my posts on their 'help community', but they can't delete this post as easily **
The RANT starts here:
When Google created Android TV, I couldn't believe what a fuck up they made of it, 90% of Android Apps are not compatible with Android TV, and they seem to have deliberately made it that way.
Google have made so many apps incompatible with Android TV that it feels like a completely different operating system.
Android TV is not Android!, they just used the Android name to make you think its the same thing, but it couldn't be more different if they tried.
The Playstore on Android TV is a completely crippled pile of pigshit, with only a very few select apps, far from the mobile version of the playstore where there are apps to do everything you could ever dream of. What is the reason for Google to lock down Android TV so fiercely? Nobody, except the brainboxes at Google HQ, will ever know.
The Google TV is supposedly running Android 14, as is my phone, so you would expect an app from the phone to work on the TV, but the clever buggers at Google have decided to block 90% off regular Android apps from working on the TV, and I simply cannot figure out why? After all, a TV is just like a massive tablet, so what is their reason for deliberately blocking so many apps from working on the Android TV system?
It's very easy to backup an app from your phone and send it to the TV, but you'll either get met with an 'App Not Compatible' error, or the app will just not run. Some apps will attempt to run, then just crash out. It is just not good enough when both devices are
SUPPOSEDLY running Android 14.
They couldn't have made Android TV less compatible with regular Android if they tried. My question is, if Google were so determined to make Android TV so incompatible with regular Android, why did they even call it Android TV? If it's called Android TV, then regular Android apps should not be
BLOCKED from working on it.
The worst part of all this is that somehow Google have tricked Philips into using Google TV on my very expensive OLED Ambilight TV. Philips have been making TV's for years and years, they know full well how to make a good TV, but they let the jumpy little upstart, who knows fuck-all about TV's create the operating system. Seriously, this could have been such a good TV, but its been crippled at birth with an operating system that is no good to man nor beast. I will never again buy a TV with Android TV, of any description on it, and Philips can no longer be trusted if they put this shit on their TV's.
If this, Android TV OS, is so SMART, why did I need to plug an old laptop in to be able to play videos from my media library? Sure, there are a couple of media player apps on Android TV, but the system is so crap it can't even detect when an external hard drive is plugged in. (even when it is correctly partitioned and formatted to work with Android), and the media player apps that are allowed on Android TV are a load of bullcrap! On my Android phone, MX Player is great, it does pretty much what I want it to, but on Android TV its so restricted its frigging useless.
Invitations:
I hereby invite Google to respond to this rant, to tell me why they have crippled Android TV so badly. Of course, they won't respond, because they believe all their products are PERFECT!
So, the debate is open to you all! Let me know your views, good or bad, about Android TV (& Google TV). All I ask is that you keep your responses genuine and factual! Just click the contact form in the menu and put Android TV Rant in the subject field.