Though absent from the Google I/O Keynote, it looks like the search giant hasn’t ignored Google TV altogether. The TV service is set to get updated to Android 4.2.2, which should bring some nice improvements over the existing Android 3.x Honeycomb build found today. LG also announced that it will roll out the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean update to existing Google TVs in Q3 of this year.
From the +Google TV Developers page:
Today, Google TV is moving to the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean, 4.2.2), and we’ve refactored Google TV so that our TV OEM partners can update to future versions of Android in a matter of weeks rather than months. For developers, this means you can build TV experiences using the latest Android APIs, including the NDK.
The latest version of Google TV also brings with it the latest version of Chrome and it will get the same six-week update cycle that the current desktop browser receives. With the update, Adobe Flash support for Chrome has officially been squashed. The Flash experience on Google TV (and Android in general) was never a beautiful solution, even though it was one of the “showcasing” feature of the TV service when announced.
What seems to be lacking, and what I was personally hoping to be a focus, is gaming with the updated version of Google TV. With dedicated Android-gaming consoles set to be released in the very near future at some insanely low prices, many could opt for something like the Ouya instead of a Google TV box. Still, the latest update will make way for a much greater application selection for the service, and with more frequent updates going forward, we could see Google TV turning into an Android gaming console as well.
We’ll get some hands-on time with LG’s Google TV running Jelly Bean soon, but be sure to watch the video demo below to tide you over for now!
Read LG’s full press release here.
[via: Engadget]