There’s a new app for Android that may not seem like a big deal but could be the launching pad for more interesting things to come that will link Google’s mobile platform with its TV platform.
The app links the user’s Android phone and Google TV-enabled device together. Then, users search for YouTube videos from the phone to send them directly to the TV.
It doesn’t actually create a real connection to the TV itself. Rather, both services connect to the same cloud. So the phone sends the request to your Google Account in the cloud, which Google TV then receives.
Now that TV has crashed through the Internet barrier, the industry needs to look to newer, more interesting forms of connectivity. Samsung has recently done similar stuff with Samsung TVs connected to Samsung mobile phones, mainly for media sharing.
We’re very bullish when it comes to Google TV, because unlike other IPTV platforms out there, this is fully open to developers and thus we expect to see a lot of third-party Google TV apps coming in a steady stream for a long time to come.
We’d love to see more integration between Google TV and Android. Letting users stream their Android music content to the TV would be cool, as would seeing all your Android notifications (incoming texts, voicemail, caller ID information, etc).
Obviously the YouTube Remote app doesn’t suggest any of that will happen, but it does prove Google is interested in connecting its TV and mobile platforms together. It’s a good, solid first step.
