Google TV to Launch Later This Month: Apps, Netflix Streaming, AirPlay-Like Video Capabilities

[Reed Rothchild]

The GTV does stomp all over the new ATV, but that shouldn't be surprising. Apple deliberately crippled the ATV. They clearly have a strategy of raising the walled garden bit by bit with the tight integration with iOS devices, and hopeless integration with practically anything else.

Google have carried out their typical manoever of producing a platform that anyone can buy into and use (and possibly abuse) as they see fit. Just like they're doing with Android on phones. Expect to see GTV embedded into TV's, set top boxes etc throughout the coming year. Google don't do things by halves (unlike Apple these days, sadly...). Still, it's all good for the consumer. I love Apple OS on the desktop, and Google on everything else. It's a win win .

 

[Stelph]

Google TV is defiantly an interesting product and ill definalty be keeping an eye on it, however being based outside of the USA (im in the UK) im quite aware that it is very much focused on the US at the moment so a lot of what it offers is not that interesting to me and other non-US citizens! Id love to see how it will work outside the US.

The main thing that struck me in the video on the google TV that was shown was there was a lot of flicking around, browing, options, buttons ect that you have to looking at the TV screen to select, which seems quite complicated to me (I hope they can be removed). Personally I'm more excited about the idea of using a touchscreen device to browse the web and find the content I am interested in (as touchscreen is much more intuitive than a TV screen) and then sending that to the ATV/GTV for viewing on the big screen, that is where this technology will work the best IMO so ill be keeping an eye on how Airplay and Fling develop and are implemented.

Using the ATV/Google TV and apps in this way woul also gets round the region specific issues of being outside the US as well as as long as there is an Iphone app for it (i.e iPlayer website, TV catch up) then it will work, the TV screen isn't taken up with all the clutter of useless apps like Netflix (it really bugs me that I cant remove Netflix from the ATV)

 

[sinsin07]

Apple are hit with these law suits every day. Most of them from people who patent concepts, wait for someone else to develop the tech, wait even longer for them to become successful and THEN make their claim.

Where were these inventors of coverflow and time machine two years ago?

This is now more than a law suit. This is a judgement against Apple.

Nope, it doesn't because you can have just about any video format on your iPad and stream it to the AppleTV. Apple also offers conversion tools for you right in the OS, so just convert them already. PS - iTunes supports more than just MP4. I play AVI files from iTunes every day.

What codecs can itunes support?

 

[Reed Rothchild]

Nope, Apple are releasing Airplay as an open standard. It is already in the hands of many home electronics manufacturers.

Well, they'll license Airplay to third parties who will produce devices that will be interoperable with (and only with) the Apple walled garden. It's hardly an advertisement of an open standard, hence the interest in DLNA.

 

[MikePA]

I'd like to get excited about television, but you're still sitting there watching stuff from your couch. So passive. And time consuming. I have things to do. Like not get fat. Take it all away and give a few sports channels and the networks for like ten bucks a month. I'd take that over all of this over featured over priced crap they're selling you on when you'd be much happier with less garbage and a few low priced options. Television has railroaded us into paying more for crap nobody but a couch sloth uses for decades.

I missed the part where you were forced to buy 'crap' and 'garbage' from 'television'. Also, exactly who is 'television'?

'...but you're still sitting there watching stuff from your couch' is bad but '...sitting there posting on an Internet forum from your couch' is OK?

 

[pmoeser]

Could you please list any that Google hasn't licensed and is implementing ? If not, please refrain from such distasteful comments.

I can list something that Google hasn't implemented...a GoogleTV

Wait a minute, I can buy an AppleTV!

When it's on store shelves and actually does what their media release claims, Apple might get more serious about their hobby.

This is a press release to try and stop people buying an existing product because "we have a me-too just around the corner!"

The media companies love it because google are planning on letting them set the rules. You'll get more of the same as we have now, not what we want.

As for distasteful, you might need to check on the definition of the word to see how it is relevant to your reply to what I thought was a reasonable suggestion

Well, they'll license Airplay to third parties who will produce devices that will be interoperable with (and only with) the Apple walled garden. It's hardly an advertisement of an open standard, hence the interest in DLNA.

Did you miss the bit about releasing it as an open standard?

That's not the same as licencing

 

[Žalgiris]

Typical KnightWRX - always right and never wrong. Keep up the good work.

 

[Reed Rothchild]

Did you miss the bit about releasing it as an open standard?

That's not the same as licencing

Airplay is a proprietary way of interfacing with Apple equipment. The specifications will be licensed to third parties that want to interface with Apple equipment. It doesn't seem much of an "open standard" when it is all about interfacing with Apple equipment. This is all about walled gardens and locking the consumer even more into the iOS "ecosystem".

This is why GTV having the ability to interface with DLNA would be welcome, as that is a real solution for devices from various manufacturers to interface with each other. There is already a plethora of devices and computers that can talk DLNA.

 

[balamw]

There is already a plethora of devices and computers that can talk DLNA.

Including iPod touch/iPhone/iPad through a variety of third party media player apps. Since the TV2 has already been jailbroken it's only a matter of time before such apps become available. Even if Apple doesn't start an App Store for TV2.

B

 

[taylorharris50]

Ui

Lets be honest. WhY is the point of getting an apple tv if u already have a ps3? Like this google tv is what I was hoping for the apple tv n apple fail by making n releasing this crappy apple tv I don't see the point of this ATV. N then Steve said. "we don't need a web browser in our living too
" like dead ass. He that hell he thinks he is?

I own a xBox, mac mini, and an ATV. The Apple TV UI is far superior to the other devices that I have hooked up to the TV for watching my own content and is pretty much all that we use to watch movies and tv shows (and has been for 3 or 4 years).

Having used the old ATV's for years to avoid paying for cable I am happiest for the better performance and Netflix integration so that I don't have to change from device to device to watch different content. If you have a desktop computer that is always on then the streaming only issue doesn't matter.

 

[adriaanmulder]

Quotes? Memory is kinda foggy today.

"They don't want a computer on their tv, they have computers, they go to their widescreen tvs for entertainment."

 

[sirozha]

Airplay is a proprietary way of interfacing with Apple equipment. The specifications will be licensed to third parties that want to interface with Apple equipment. It doesn't seem much of an "open standard" when it is all about interfacing with Apple equipment. This is all about walled gardens and locking the consumer even more into the iOS "ecosystem".

This is why GTV having the ability to interface with DLNA would be welcome, as that is a real solution for devices from various manufacturers to interface with each other. There is already a plethora of devices and computers that can talk DLNA.

Apple is all about walled gardens. That's why I personally love it. For years, I had been trying to get rid of Windows while trying different flavors of Linux many times over. None of them was solid enough to replace Windows in my estimate. Even though I could have forced myself to use exclusively Linux, I would have had a lot more gray hair by now.

I decided that once Apple completed the migration to the Intel platform and released aluminum unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros, I would migrate to Apple machines and get rid of all my Windows boxes. As a result, I have no more Windows PCs left at home. I have a beefed up Dell PowerEdge D410 running various Cisco voice server VMs for my home lab as well as one Windows VM under VMWare ESXi. The Windows VM is used exclusively for Quicken, and we access it via Microsoft Remote Desktop application launched from the Macs. We do every other computing task on our Macs. My wife is loving the new computing experience, and she is excited about computing as she has never been before. Had I tried to force her into Linux, she would have hated computing and me. And, we would have been divorced by now.

So, I do not care for the open platform. What I want is a tightly integrated system that rewards the user with exciting experience. I am a Cisco engineer (data and voice), and I can do everything for my work on a Mac. There is a shell, which I use extensively, and the years of my battling with Linux came in very handy this way. Everything that I could have run under Linux or Windows for my work I can run under Mac OS. My wife does not have to know anything about the shell, though. Everything she needs to do she does in the GUI, and she is loving it.

The same is true for the Apple TV vs Google TV. Apple will provide a rewarding user experience in a wall-garden environment, whereas Google will provide an open system while irritating the hell out of users. There are hundreds of millions of regular people out there that just want to push a button on the remote and start watching content on the device like Apple TV. There are millions of nerds out there who want to be able to stream ripped movies off their network storage using DLNA. Both platforms will exist, but Apple will make a killing, while Google TV will be a nerd paradise. Of course, Google will make close to nothing off this endeavor similarly to the way they have been making close to nothing off all of their endeavors (like Google Docs) outside of their one-trick-pony advertising revenue stream.

 

[arn]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/google_tv_inks_links_to_be_ad_free_ZKoDj2Leg1OlxiTS7cP1nJ

One thing to note. This thing was designed for ads. So those who are opposed to ads... seems like they will be coming.

According to that Google TV to be ad free for a year... which certainly implies there will be a point where there will be ads in it.

arn

 

[sirozha]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/google_tv_inks_links_to_be_ad_free_ZKoDj2Leg1OlxiTS7cP1nJ

One thing to note. This thing was designed for ads. So those who are opposed to ads... seems like they will be coming.

According to that Google TV to be ad free for a year... which certainly implies there will be a point where there will be ads in it.

arn

Google charges cell phone manufacturers nothing for Android. It's probably the same model with the Google TV. How else are they supposed to be making any money off this endeavor if not spamming users with ads? Advertisement is the only thing that works for Google. Google is not a high-tech company. Google is an ad agency that uses high tech as a trojan horse to infiltrate people's lives and spam them with ads.

 

[dgree03]

Apple is all about walled gardens. That's why I personally love it. For years, I had been trying to get rid of Windows while trying different flavors of Linux many times over. None of them was solid enough to replace Windows in my estimate. Even though I could have forced myself to use exclusively Linux, I would have had a lot more gray hair by now.

I decided that once Apple completed the migration to the Intel platform and released aluminum unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros, I would migrate to Apple machines and get rid of all my Windows boxes. As a result, I have no more Windows PCs left at home. I have a beefed up Dell PowerEdge D410 running various Cisco voice server VMs for my home lab as well as one Windows VM under VMWare ESXi. The Windows VM is used exclusively for Quicken, and we access it via Microsoft Remote Desktop application launched from the Macs. We do every other computing task on our Macs. My wife is loving the new computing experience, and she is excited about computing as she has never been before. Had I tried to force her into Linux, she would have hated computing and me. And, we would have been divorced by now.

So, I do not care for the open platform. What I want is a tightly integrated system that rewards the user with exciting experience. I am a Cisco engineer (data and voice), and I can do everything for my work on a Mac. There is a shell, which I use extensively, and the years of my battling with Linux came in very handy this way. Everything that I could have run under Linux or Windows for my work I can run under Mac OS. My wife does not have to know anything about the shell, though. Everything she needs to do she does in the GUI, and she is loving it.

The same is true for the Apple TV vs Google TV. Apple will provide a rewarding user experience in a wall-garden environment, whereas Google will provide an open system while irritating the hell out of users. There are hundreds of millions of regular people out there that just want to push a button on the remote and start watching content on the device like Apple TV. There are millions of nerds out there who want to be able to stream ripped movies off their network storage using DLNA. Both platforms will exist, but Apple will make a killing, while Google TV will be a nerd paradise. Of course, Google will make close to nothing off this endeavor similarly to the way they have been making close to nothing off all of their endeavors (like Google Docs) outside of their one-trick-pony advertising revenue stream.

Well seems like the walled garden will be hurting them in the long run on this particular product. With GTV getting deals with everyone and there mama.. I dont thing ATV has a chance unless apple relaxes its hold on it.

 

[Reed Rothchild]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/google_tv_inks_links_to_be_ad_free_ZKoDj2Leg1OlxiTS7cP1nJ

One thing to note. This thing was designed for ads. So those who are opposed to ads... seems like they will be coming.

According to that Google TV to be ad free for a year... which certainly implies there will be a point where there will be ads in it.

arn

In other news - it's been announced that the Pope is a Catholic, and bear-like droppings have been discovered in woods .

 

[John.B]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/google_tv_inks_links_to_be_ad_free_ZKoDj2Leg1OlxiTS7cP1nJ

One thing to note. This thing was designed for ads. So those who are opposed to ads... seems like they will be coming.

According to that Google TV to be ad free for a year... which certainly implies there will be a point where there will be ads in it.

Ads that spy on you, no less! Or no ads for a year, but it still spies on you!

But it's Google so it's a feature!

 

[dgree03]

Ads that spy on you, no less! Or no ads for a year, but it still spies on you!

But it's Google so it's a feature!

Tired talking points, are tired.

 

[John.B]

Tired talking points, are tired.

Eric Schmidt brags that he can correlate your web habits and email content and where you are at any given moment and where you've been and who you call and who calls you.

And he wants to add your TV viewing habits to the mix.

Yeah, that's just talking points. Why would anyone care about that?

 

[dgree03]

Eric Schmidt brags that he can correlate your web habits and email content and where you are at any given moment and where you've been and who you call and who calls you.

And he wants to add your TV viewing habits to the mix.

Yeah, that's just talking points. Why would anyone care about that?

If they care about google, they care about apple doing the same thing.... are you gonna stop buying apple products now?

 

[Reed Rothchild]

Eric Schmidt brags that he can correlate your web habits and email content and where you are at any given moment and where you've been and who you call and who calls you.

And he wants to add your TV viewing habits to the mix.

Yeah, that's just talking points. Why would anyone care about that?

Have you actually considered what Apple do with the iTunes data that you are forced to give if using an iOS device? Apple themselves are quite honest about how they use it to better target ads at people, and provide it to other marketing or advertising companies. I wish people would stop doing the "Google bad, Apple good" mantra. They are both after the same thing, it's just that one is a lot more open about it than the other.

 

[John.B]

If they care about google, they care about apple doing the same thing.... are you gonna stop buying apple products now?

I must've missed the part where Steve Jobs brags to the press about collecting and correlating that type of data, do you have a link?

Here's the link where Schmidt bragged to The Atlantic about his ability to spy on his users: http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-ceo-the-laws-are-written-by-lobbyists/63908/

Schmidt envisions a future where we embrace a larger role for machines and technology. "With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches," he said. "We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less now what you're thinking about."

Where by "with your permission" he means anyone who uses Google's software or is "served" by Google's ads.

 

[John.B]

Have you actually considered what Apple do with the iTunes data that you are forced to give if using an iOS device? Apple themselves are quite honest about how they use it to better target ads at people, and provide it to other marketing or advertising companies. I wish people would stop doing the "Google bad, Apple good" mantra. They are both after the same thing, it's just that one is a lot more open about it than the other.

The sum total of your pro-Google argument is that "other people do it to"? Really?

 

[MacBoobsPro]

I was a staunch AppleTV fan. Then it began to piss me off at its limited capabilities, so called update after so called update of software brought nothing exciting or new. Then the big announcement - ATV2 - was the biggest let down of all (wheres the friggin harddrive? - I dont want to connect my Laptop to an external and have to have both fired up as well as the TV just to watch TV.

From even the earliest indications it looks like GTV stomps all over ATV. I think I'll be switching when it comes out (if it comes to the UK).

 

[JAT]

Why does Apple have an aversion to people being able to surf the internet from their living rooms..... Apple better adapt pretty quickly as Google TV looks pretty compelling and Apple TV spells GREED - Apple just wants to rent or sell you something. Why can't I check out stats on ESPN while watching an NFL game... Sony will offer that ... I bet most consumers will vote with their wallets and go for the Google offering.

Claiming censorship or whatever you are calling this over a feature that a particular CE product does not have is just plain stupid. The TV can't be driven or ridden to work, either. Is Apple saying you shouldn't go to work?

I surf in my LR with Apple products almost daily. Laptop or Mini, which is attached to my *gasp* TV.

OMG, I just found out....the iPod Shuffle ALSO doesn't surf the web on my TV. Those bastards!