Google is finally bringing the Google TV app to Android smartphones in Canada and 14 other countries.
This application replaces the Google Play Movies and TV application and also allows users to download and watch movies and TV shows. An advantage of the app becoming Google TV is that it now features better curation and displays content from other streaming services you are subscribed to, like Netflix and YouTube, for example.
You can also save Google-searched movies and shows to your watchlist, which then appears in the Google TV app. While it is a minor change, given that most people probably use Google as their default search engine, this is quite useful.
If by now you’re thinking, “where have I heard the name Google TV before?”, It’s because it’s also the name of the interface that powers the new Google Chromecast. If you have Google’s streaming device, this app should work similarly.
The other notable feature of the new app is that it also works as a remote control for Google’s latest Chromecast and other Android TVs. This is a smart move and is probably an effort by Google to get more users on its mobile app. It’s a strategy that Roku is taking advantage of more in its latest OS updates as well.
When the Google TV app is on the same Wi-Fi network as an Android TV, you can also turn on your TV, navigate menus, and use your phone’s keypad to enter passwords. Users can also access this from a Android Quick Settings Mosaic in the notification shade once it is deployed.
The 14 countries in which the new TV app will be launched are as follows:
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- France
- Germany
- India
- Ireland
- Italy
- Japan
- Mexico
- Spain
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
Launching this app in more countries should help clean up Google’s TV-related apps a bit, but it’s still a pretty fractured ecosystem.
As always, you can rent and watch content through the YouTube app, and on some platforms like Roku, this is your only option. Android phones and TV are now basically lined up under the Google TV brand, but even though everything looks like Google TV now, some devices are still called Android TV. IOS users can use YouTube and Google Play Movies and TV.
It’s all a bit complicated and unfortunately since YouTube is everywhere I still rent most of my content through the platform. Hopefully Google will solve this situation sooner rather than later.
At the moment, the Google TV application has not been implemented on any of my devices. Look out for this in the next few weeks.
Source: Google Via: 9to5Google