Android TV was properly unveiled back at last year’s I/O event by Google. Although, this was when the device was unveiled, the device did not actually launch until much later in the year. In fact, it is still quite limited in the actual variance of devices that the platform is offered with. That said, it was just announced this morning that Sony have now opened pre-orders for a number of TV units which come with Android TV pre-installed. Either way, the future looks bright for Android TV and the availability of the platform is ever-growing as the months pass on.
The same cannot be said for Google’s previous attempt at home entertainment which came in the form of Google TV. Back in January, Google sent out a blog post clearly instructed app developers to effectively forget about Google TV and instead focus on Android TV going forward. Now today, Google has sent out another announcement detailing that for the older Google TV units, YouTube will no longer be supported or functional. The reason for this, is that Google announced they are effectively retiring version 2 of the Data API (v2).
In fact, the news of the retiring of Data API is not new news, as Google did pre-warn about the retirement of the version back in March. This is due to the v2 being replaced by Data API v3. Not to mention, that they advised from April 20th the retirement process would come into effect. As April 20th is here, the retiring of the older Data API is beginning. As part of that retirement, older versions of Google TV (especially versions 1 and 2) as well as some older smart TVs and gaming consoles will no longer be able to access YouTube anymore. Over the next couple of months, trying to access any YouTube content on these devices will be represented with a warning video (as shown below). If you are running a newer version of Google TV then you will need to push through an update to the YouTube app to retain the functionality. For those who might be affected, you can find out more details and read today’s announcement in full by clicking the source link below.