At day 2 of its I/O developer conference, Google announced a new version of Android (2.2 "FroYo") and an Android-powered living room solution called Google TV. First let's take a look at FroYo.
Android 2.2 (development kit out now, downloads and over the air updates coming "soon") should have really been called version 3 because of all the neat features it contains. There's something here for users and developers alike.
Android 2.2 user features
Some of these are catch-up features that other phones like the iPhone have had for a while, like Exchange pin numbers and remote wipe. But others leapfrog anything else currently available. Ain't competition grand?
Android 2.2 developer features
I could go on and on about the new features for developers but here are the highlights:
Google TV
Do you recall the Web TV effort from about 10 years ago? It was supposed to let your TV act as a gateway to the Internet. Of course, 10 years ago we were talking dial-up speeds. No YouTube. No HTML5. No Flickr, or FaceBook or Twitter, or Chatroulette. And Web TV was completely closed. There was no ecosystem, and no open source. It's amazing how much has changed since then, and Google is going to try again.
Google TV is an Android-based platform for merging web and TV. You take your regular HDTV with HDMI in, and add an inexpensive (~$200-$400) dedicated solid state Atom-based computer, plus a remote control that has a keyboard. Or you get a new TV that has the computer part built-in. You use the wireless broadband connection that you probably already have set up in your house. Then you turn this thing on and it looks like, well, regular TV. Ok, now what?
Press a button and a search bar appears. Type in the name of a show, and see options for where it is playing now or in the future on the TV, plus links to web-based resources for the show. For example, type in "House" and you can see Fox is currently running a new episode, there's a re-run at 10pm you can record if you have a DVR, and a bunch of old episodes are available on Hulu and on Amazon.com for free or for purchase. And you might find that somebody did a spoof episode on YouTube, and there's a fan club meeting around the corner, and, ... you get the idea.
Don't feel like a TV show? No problem, you can go to a web site to check up on news or sports, check your email, send a twitter update, and so forth. Every web site, including Flash based ones or sites with lots of Ajax and HTML5 effects, are available on the big screen. Google TV uses the full Chrome browser, so pretty much anything Chrome can do, Google TV can do.
And because it's based on Android, you can browse the Android market and download and play your favorite games and other apps directly from your TV as well. Your TV probably doesn't have a touch screen, but you can use the remote control that comes with the box to interact with the apps. Or you can run a remote control program on your Android phone and use that as a control for your big screen. Multiple phones can act as a remote for a single Google TV box. And did I mention that because of the Atom processor and graphics chip, Android apps are going to run faster on your TV than they do on any current ARM-based portable device?
Google has lined up support from Sony, Logitech, and Intel for the Google TV initiative. That's a start, but not nearly enough for this thing to take off. There is a lot of skepticism that anyone can pull this off, and many will wait and see before committing. It may take a while (read: years), but this one has a lot of potential. After all there are over 4 billion TV watchers out there - an audience that dwarfs even the mobile phone market. The first hardware will be on sale in time for this year's holiday season.