About a year ago, the TiVo Stream 4K dongle made its debut, bringing Android TV to all for an affordable price and with a neat piece of software that could recommend and organize content. Sound familiar? Now that Google has built features just like this into its Android TV platform, it sounds like TiVo is planning to turn away.
TiVo CEO Jon Kirchner noted during the company’s quarterly earnings call (via ZatzNotFunny). Emphasis is our own:
[…] moving into an embedded application, where we’ll be let’s say the preferred user interface choice on a broader platform but originally around the notion that it would live on top of Android TV. […] What has changed is last fall, Google came out and said that they intend to go beyond their core OS level offering and really get into the UX business, and in so doing it eclipses one’s ability to I think reasonably be an alternative […]
Why the strong reaction? It’s pretty clear. The TiVo Stream 4K was only unique in the market because of TiVo’s recommendation and organization features. These are the exact features that Google TV, frankly, does even better. TiVo technically has one more year to use regular Android TV, but even that version has been updated to push recommendations as well.
So, it seems like Google’s move will lose at least one of its notable partners as a result of its newfound ambition to make Android TV more competitive. Worth it? Probably, but still a shame to see.
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