Do you have an Android TV from manufacturer LeEco? If so, you should be receiving an update soon. This will give users access to “an extended free trial” through the DirectTV Now app. The device purchase dates for this promotion are 4/1/2017 – 6/30/2017 and a unique promo code will be shared with those who […]
Author: Nick Felker
Nick Felker is a student Electrical & Computer Engineering student at Rowan University (C/O 2017) and the student IEEE webmaster. When he's not studying, he is a software developer for the web and Android (Felker Tech). He has several open source projects on GitHub Devices: Moto G-2013 Moto G-2015, Moto 360, Google ADT-1, Nexus 7-2013 (x2), Lenovo Laptop, Custom Desktop. Although he was an intern at Google, the content of this blog is entirely independent and his own thoughts.
EPIX Cast Comes to Android TV
The latest media app to come to Android TV, in addition to TNT, is EPIX. The update, posted on the third, adds a single change: WHAT’S NEW EPIX is now available on Android TV Like other TV Everywhere apps, users need to authenticate with a cable provider before they can take full advantage of the […]
Watch TBS Also Arrives on Android TV
We took a deep look into the Watch TNT app on Android TV, which has plenty of evidence pointing to a release on the platform soon. It also seems like the Watch TBS app is arriving on the smart TV platform as well. This app will let users authenticate with a cable provider and gain […]
Do you watch TNT? They have a variety of shows, movies, and sports, and users have been able to watch this content through their mobile app. With the recent update, it seems like there is support for Android TV, as shown from the web. Users should be able to have full access to shows once […]
We’ve Launched a Patreon, Help Support Us
Good afternoon, When we first launched a year and a half ago, there was not a lot of enthusiasm about Android TV. Few apps supported it, the launcher was barebones, and it felt like a nice idea but incomplete. Since then, we’ve seen numerous apps and games launch on TV, multiple operating system iterations that […]
Tv App Repo Adds Support for Icon and Banner Packs
For many experienced Android tinkerers, they have switched to a third-party launcher that enables a variety of customizations and control over the look and feel of their homescreen. One of the biggest parts of “look” is the icon pack. By downloading one, available as an app, the user is able to swap all of the […]
Calling All Artists! Create Banner Packs for Android TV!
Today we are launching a new feature in the Tv App Repo: Banner Packs. They work pretty much the same as icon packs, albeit a different image resolution. This is a brief guide to how to create banner packs from scratch or update your existing icon packs to support TVs. Note that these banner packs […]
Hulu TV is now live, but not for Android TV
Hulu is getting into the Internet TV market, like YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue, and many other competitors. For $40/month, you can watch a variety of popular channels on a multitude of devices with cloud DVRing of shows and on-demand content as well. While the app does support some smart TV platforms, it notably leaves out […]
Google Assistant is meant to be a singular place to go to control your house, whether through Google Home, your phone, or your TV in the future. With that being said, the software needs to have a broad range of support for the many products in your home, and provide intercompatibility between all of them. […]
Sony may soon upgrade their TVs to Nougat
Sony has been incorporating Android TV into their TV sets since 2015, although they haven’t been too quick with their software updates. It does seem like owners of Sony TVs will be receiving Nougat pretty soon, according to a new help article posted on their website. Your Android TV software version is scheduled to receive […]
Cordcutting Fortnightly provides readers with a collection of news in cordcutting that has occurred over the past two weeks. View last fortnight’s news. FCC Votes to Reevaluate Media Ownership Cap In order to promote a large number of broadcasters, the FCC has long had a media ownership cap, effectively a cap on how many households […]
Google I/O is happening in just a few weeks. This annual developer’s conference showcases Google’s focus over the next year, paired with many announcements and sessions to help developers build better products using Google’s services and APIs. Their schedule of sessions originally starts off small, giving a few scant details. Late last week the schedule […]
There’s a lot of really cool websites out there, but the web has not been too compatible with Android TV. One could sideload Chrome, or a browser like Puffin TV, but the web has been treated like a second class citizen. For one, you can’t add web apps to your TV’s launcher like you can […]
Welcome to the club TELUS! The Canadian telecommunications company has this week announced an Android TV which gives users access to their new OTT service. The device, Pik TV, which is physically rather small, comes with 2GB RAM, 8 GB storage, along with ethernet, USB, and HDMI ports. It comes with a remote which pairs over […]
There’s a lot of games being launched on Android TV, and we may not have time to cover them individually. These weekly posts give brief summaries of many new games that are being published. If you know of a new game, or find one we missed, let us know in the comments below. General Games […]
YouTube Kids is a version of YouTube designed for kids, which is apparent from the name. It lets them quickly find content from their favorite characters, and all the content is purposed to be safe and inexplicit. It has been available for a while on phones and tablets, but that wasn’t ideal. Even though you […]
Have you heard? Android TV will be getting Google Assistant soonTM. It was originally announced in January, although we haven’t heard of a release date since. It is likely, however, that its release will coincide with Google I/O in mid-May. That’s when Google makes a number of significant announcements and could coincide with a larger […]
Do you have your NVIDIA Shield TV hooked up to a 4K TV? You can access lots of ultra-high definition content: Netflix, Vudu, and more. Thus far, Google Play Movies hasn’t supported it. Yet the app is getting an update that will unlock NVIDIA’s high-performance graphics in the devices. Users will be able to take […]
This is an interesting time of the school year, as the semester dies down but finals haven’t started yet. It’s a point in time where students have a pocket of free time, and over the weekend I spent some time making adjustments to some apps to make them look nicer or work better. Launch on […]
HBO Go, HBO’s app for those who have a cable subscription, recently received some big features to its mobile and TV apps which should improve the user experience quite a bit. WHAT’S NEW • Pick up watching a series where you left off • Continuously watch your favorite series with the new automated binge mode […]
Kodi is meant to be a universal media player, with almost everything being customizable through add-ons. It works on many different platforms, so doesn’t always take advantage of each platform’s unique features. On Android TV, for instance, the app has existed, but only in isolation. Many of the great features of Android TV – recommendations, voice […]
The all-in-one media player app Kodi has support for a lot of different types of media sources, although Netflix has been one that has required numerous workarounds. The reason is due to DRM. Kodi has has some support for Widevine DRM for a while, but not enough to entirely support the service. That’s changing due […]
Chromecast functionality, allowing your phone to quickly cast media to a speaker directly or through an Internet connection, has slowly been adopted in the speaker industry. Jensen has just announced their new smart speaker, named the JSB-1000. This device, which is expected to retail for around $170, should appear in many stores. In addition to […]
Recommendations currently are not great. Many apps use the recommendation row on the launcher to push things that may seem popular, but things you don’t want. It gives you a bad experience and doesn’t help the content creators either. With Android O, this could change. Users may be given greater control over the kinds of […]
There’s a lot of games being launched on Android TV, and we may not have time to cover them individually. These weekly posts give brief summaries of many new games that are being published. If you know of a new game, or find one we missed, let us know in the comments below. Commander Genius […]
Cordcutting Fortnightly provides readers with a collection of news in cordcutting that has occurred over the past two weeks. Boomerang Launches OTT Service Boomerang, a TV channel for classic cartoons, now lets users stream cartoons through any mobile device with their new service. The service runs for $5 a month and has support for phones, although […]
We recently noted that Android TV could start to play a bigger role in India, and it seems like that has happened with the announcement of Airtel’s Internet TV. It is an Android TV set-top box which supports 4K video at 60 FPS and comes with the company’s television network as an added bonus for […]
Two of Google’s Android TV-related applications, the Remote Control mobile app and the Live Channels app, have received small updates today. Live Channels gets a bump from 1.13.011 to 1.13.015. The remote app also received a trivial change in its version. What’s changed? Not much. The differences in files are minimal. The Live Channels changes […]
Over the weekend, a few users have reported a software update on their devices even if they’re not in the beta program. This is Android version 7.1.2 and the factory image has already been posted. Many of the forward-facing changes seem to affect Android on the phone and tablet, but the changes don’t affect TVs. […]
Wi-Fi has become a rather ubiquitous standard for wireless Internet communication, but it can often be more power-hungry and more complicated to implement than other wireless standards for nearby device communication. For example, using Google Cast may require your phone to message a router which then in turn messages your Android TV. There can be […]