Samsung won’t be making an Android TV in 2015
As they always seem to do, Samsung kicked off their 2015 CES press conference with televisions. Televisions galore. Bigger, higher density displays. Bright colors. Curved glass. It’s your typical one-up year-over-year.
But Samsung made a big statement at the show regarding Android TV — that is, they won’t be using it in their smart TVs. They’ve instead chosen to go with Tizen, with the bold declaration that all their smart TVs going forward will be using the budding platform once meant for smartphones.
It’s not that much of a surprise considering Samsung themselves tipped us off to this very move when they began shuffling around their software engineers to help shape Tizen into their premier internet-of-things platform. Surprise or not, though, it’s still pretty tough to hear that one of the biggest television manufacturers won’t be getting aboard the Android TV train.
The saddest part? They’re not alone. Their nagging neighbor over in South Korea — LG — also seemed to shun Android TV in their own CES 2015 press conference earlier today, with the company trumpeting webOS over all else. Again, that wasn’t that much of a surprise considering LG bought webOS from HP for this very purpose.
It’s still too early to say Android TV won’t be able to capture the interest of the mainstream consumer market without these television juggernauts. After all, there’s still plenty of room for it on set-top boxes from companies who don’t manufacture their own smart TV units.
It’s not all doom and gloom and not all hope is lost, though. There are also other TV manufacturers who might still tap Android TV for their smart needs. Philips is one such company committed to Google’s offering, and Sony has a strong history with Google.
Regardless, if Google had hoped for a better future for their fledgling TV platform this certainly wasn’t the best news coming out of LG and Samsung’s pressers today. Whether Android TV will eventually suffer the same fate as Google TV remains to be seen, but without two of the biggest industry players behind it its trek will be more akin to scaling Mt. St. Helens barehanded than a simple hop over a shallow valley hill.