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Comment by throwaways885 | Hacker News Reader

Google TV is software which runs on Android TV devices made by Google. It's not a replacement of Android TV. It's akin to Windows Media Center running on Windows XP.

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Google TV was a predecessor to Android TV. Source I have one of each in the house, but also the wiki article in the post you replied to. Google TV may have run on top of Android, but it was its own Shell. The OS was still useful until a youtube update killed youtube on it. The TV came with a full keyboard on the remote.

The new Google TV is more akin to iPad OS and iOS splitting, where the TV and Phone variant can have their own identity, but from the looks of it, its starting out as just a single android app, and not a full on shell fork.

Yes I know. My point was that Android TV is already an operating system in itself (which already has it's own TV features), and Google TV is a rebranding of the software running upon that OS. Namely, the new home screen app.

Is that the case? Or is Google TV an app that you click from the Android TV home screen? I thought in this context Google TV is more akin to Prime Video or The Roku Channel. Can you escape the Google TV app and get back to the old Android TV launcher? Can you install the new Google TV app as an app on older Android TV, or is it an OS upgrade?

Maybe the line is so blurred between shell/launcher and app now that its a distinction without merit. They can just keep nesting shells inside apps recursively, ad infinitum.

I have the Google TV app on my phone already (the Movies & TV app auto updated.)

According to this article, it looks like another rebranding, which is exactly what happened 6 years ago when Google TV was rebranded to Android TV. Its a simple way to drop support for existing devices.

https://www.xda-developers.com/android-tv-rebrand-google-tv-...

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