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As they always seem to do, Samsung kicked off their 2015 CES press conference with televisions. Televisions galore. Bigger, higher density displays. Bright colors. Curved glass. It’s your typical one-up year-over-year.
But Samsung made a big statement at the show regarding Android TV — that is, they won’t be using it in their smart TVs. They’ve instead chosen to go with Tizen, with the bold declaration that all their smart TVs going forward will be using the budding platform once meant for smartphones.
It’s not that much of a surprise considering Samsung themselves tipped us off to this very move when they began shuffling around their software engineers to help shape Tizen into their premier internet-of-things platform. Surprise or not, though, it’s still pretty tough to hear that one of the biggest television manufacturers won’t be getting aboard the Android TV train.
The saddest part? They’re not alone. Their nagging neighbor over in South Korea — LG — also seemed to shun Android TV in their own CES 2015 press conference earlier today, with the company trumpeting webOS over all else. Again, that wasn’t that much of a surprise considering LG bought webOS from HP for this very purpose.
It’s still too early to say Android TV won’t be able to capture the interest of the mainstream consumer market without these television juggernauts. After all, there’s still plenty of room for it on set-top boxes from companies who don’t manufacture their own smart TV units.
It’s not all doom and gloom and not all hope is lost, though. There are also other TV manufacturers who might still tap Android TV for their smart needs. Philips is one such company committed to Google’s offering, and Sony has a strong history with Google.
Regardless, if Google had hoped for a better future for their fledgling TV platform this certainly wasn’t the best news coming out of LG and Samsung’s pressers today. Whether Android TV will eventually suffer the same fate as Google TV remains to be seen, but without two of the biggest industry players behind it its trek will be more akin to scaling Mt. St. Helens barehanded than a simple hop over a shallow valley hill.
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There are still big players like Sony, Sharp and Philips. You can also attach an Android TV box to any tv.
Philips is not what it used to be. Philips tv’s are made by a Chinese company that is allowed to use the name of Philips. We own a Philips smart tv the audio and screen quality is great but the software is really bad.
So Android TV should help fix that issue.
I think Android TV is DOA. Google just doesn’t have the cache to really push the envelope in other areas. They’re a services company at the end of the day, and they’re a GREAT services company.
I applaud SAMSUNG 100% Android TV isn’t nothing to write home about anyway SAMSUNG won’t kiss GOOGLE butt no need too.
Can’t blame’em. What do they stand to gain schilling google’s play store for them not to mention I doubt Google is subsidizing the hardware needed to run the games so they either have to make their TV”s more expensive or make two different models. Add to it that Google TV was terrible and android TV didn’t amaze or surpass what’s already available in anyway
Gawdammit, I really want to see a big-screen gaming platform evolve that will leverage mobile devices as controllers.
I’ll love to see an andrógenos TV with a remote like lg magic remote to point and click thru the entire screen and not only in the areas selected by the cursor keys.
So……no word about the S6?
Tizen is a joke Samsung will be a big flop after this
LOL what? Samsung has sold so many Smart TVs already with whatever crappy OS was on them, why would Tizen be any different? The average consumer isn’t going to care what OS its Smart TV is running – heck they’ll probably barely use their smart features.
Android was once a joke…
Samsung is off my list of potential HDTV acquisitions this year. I don’t want their or LG’s orphan OSes. It’s pretty simple: I think I trust Android TV to have more apps, better apps, and to stay current. I trust Samsung and LG to have a handful of apps, that become hopelessly outdated as time goes on. Just like WebOS.
Just like every generic TV OS out there.
Or just get the panel and ignore whatever smart TV functions are on the TV. All of them will suck. I dont want a CPU in my TV, things change too often to lock myself into something like that.
Just get it, ignore the smart features and plug in whatever box or stick that does what you want. Then you can upgrade that box or stick at will and use the same TV for a decade.
Good for them. I don’t want Android anything on my TV after Google TV. I can’t blame Samsung for feeling the same way.