Chapter 1. Introducing Google TV

Even before Google TV was launched, the same questions seemed to be on everyone’s mind: What exactly is Google TV? Is it a new TV channel? Is it a new LCD TV made by Google? Is it a subscription service? What can you do with it? The answer is actually simple: Google TV is a new platform that seamlessly combines the web with television. As you’ll find in this and subsequent chapters, Google TV is an open and flexible platform that gives you, the developer, various avenues for bringing rich applications to the TV via the web.

Google TV runs on the Android platform, the same platform that powers millions of mobile devices. And Google TV ships with Google Chrome, Google’s own open-source browser which supports both HTML5 and Adobe Flash^[1]. This means that there are essentially two paths to build applications for Google TV: you can build web applications (apps) for Chrome or you can develop Android applications. This book is aimed at developers who are interested in creating web apps for Google TV, although many of the design and user experience considerations also are relevant for Android apps.

^[1] The Google TV platform supports videos rendered in Adobe Flash format. Visit Adobe’s developer website at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/ for further information on developing content using Adobe Flash technology.