Google TV has been dead in the water for a while now, but rumor has it that a flashy new successor, Android TV, is on the way. There are rumors, and also it was hiding in plain sight atCES three months ago.
Turns out that while Android TV hasn’t been officially announced or acknowledged by Google, it already poked its head out at the world’s largest gathering of tech industry professionals and the journalists who cover them. The Hisense Pulse Pro, which runs the as-yet-unannounced Android TV was on full display back in January, showcasing a speedy, card-based interface that’s very reminiscent of the Google Play store, and virtually unlike traditional builds of Google TV. It also looks a whole heckuva lot like the Android TV screengrabs posted by The Verge over the weekend.
Android TV isn’t actually floating around in the wild yet, as the Pulse Pro is unreleased, but its blatant if relatively unnoticed presence at CES pretty much (retroactively) confirms everything we’ve been hearing about Google’s reinvented TV push. The only question left is whether this was a mistake, or some kind of weird stealth release.
Either way, when Google finally does yank off the cover of its plans, perhaps with fanfare at this year’s Google I/O, Android TV is going to be one huge non-surprise. All that’s left to find out is how it’ll fair in the wild. [Reddit]
