App Store coming to Google TV

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Google, Home Entertainment, Rumors, Software

A version of the Android Market for the Google TV platform is due "very short term," the general manager overseeing Google TV products for Logitech said Tuesday.

Speaking at the OTTCon here on Tuesday, Ashish Arora, the vice president and general manager for Logitech's Digital Home Group, was asked on a panel discussion whether Google TV owners would be able to take advantage of other Android apps soon.

Arora answered in the affirmative, although his answers didn't quite nail down the timeframe. "It will happen shortly," he said. "It's a given that it will happen this year, 100 percent," he said.

"We're talking about a very short term," he said.

Although Arora does not work for Google, Logitech was one of the key launch partners for the Google TV platform, with Sony. Logitech launched its Logitech Revue in October. At the time, some of the personalization aspects from other Google services were missing, part of Google's practice of launching a product and adding functionality over time.

Google, however, has launched its marketplace for Android apps both for its phone platform as well as its Chrome Web store via the Web. So far, however, Google TV has lacked a similar aspect.

But what apps will be launched for Google TV?

So far, one of the Google TV platform premises has been to integrate the Web and TV, or to use the Web to enhance the broadcast. "It won't just be weather apps," Arora said. "What will be really interesting will be to tie the content to what you're watching."

S.V. Vasudevan, director of advanced architecture at Cisco, which commissioned a look at the future of TV noted that directors have begun now "live tweeting" during the television broadcast of their movie; Howard Stern also did this recently with the movie version of Private Parts.

Arora, Vasudevan, and others are here this week at the OTTCon, the shortened version of the Over-the-Top Conference, which refers now to what used to be called Internet video, Internet video streaming, or IPTV.

This article, written by Mark Hachman, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc..