G o o g l e plans to redesign the Play Store on Android TV to add video previews for apps Android TV came about when Google w...

Google plans to redesign the Play Store on Android TV to add video previews for apps

Android TV came about when Google was trying to expand its Android brand to as many markets as possible (Android Wear, Android Things, Android Pay, etc.). Some of these have been rebranded but Android TV has kept its branding and it doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. In fact, Google is happy with how the platform has evolved over the years and application developers seem to be on board as well. Thanks to the increase in developer activity, Google is putting additional focus on its smart TV OS with a number of changes to come in the future.

Shalini Govil-Pai, Google’s senior director of product management for Android TV, recently spoke in an interview with TechHive about the recent rise in developer activity. She says that Android TV now has over 5,000 applications and games in the Play Store and that this is a big increase as the number was only at 3,000 around the same time last year. We don’t really hear about new Android TV set-top boxes launching throughout the year but there are a number of new smart TVs that get released with Android TV as its software.

To go along with this surge in developer support the team at Google is currently planning on redesigning the TV version of the Play Store. The company says it wants to add video previews for apps and believes that will make the experience “a lot more visual and a lot more cinematic, which is what you expect on TV.” They are currently working on filling the void of some key studios to get their apps in the Play Store (including Nick Jr., Discovery, and Watch TNT) but wasn’t able to reveal any information about their discussion with these companies.

Although, they did talk about how they would like to expand into fitness apps, education apps, and a lot more games.

During the “What’s new on Android TV” session at Google I/O 2019, images of the Play Store redesign were shown off. The images can be found below.

During the Google I/O developer conference (via 9to5Google), Google showed off images of the new interface for the Play Store on Android TV.