Reply to post: Re: A thought

Re: A thought

"Is there any point to Android other than on OLED/LCD touch screen phones and tablets?"

Yes. The reasons differ depending on what you're building, but there are a couple good ones. One is app portability if people other than you are going to write apps for the thing. This could be library services or ebook stores which write an Android app that runs on an ereader and supports their format or can download from their service. If all the ereaders use the same interface, they only have to write the app once. The ereaders likely don't, which is why there aren't that many apps like that, but it's a similar model with streaming video on smart TVs.

For TVs, a general smart TV platform is more likely to get support than a specific one. For example, one of my family members has been asking for my assistance because they've lost access to a television channel on their old satellite system and they want it back. They have a smart TV running some probably awful proprietary system and they also have another proprietary streamer stick which they can use. Neither of these does apps, so I've been attempting to look up whether either has a manufacturer-supplied app for something carrying the channel concerned. With something running a generalized platform like Android TV which can receive apps from people other than the manufacturer, the likelihood that there is something of use is higher. Certainly not guaranteed, but nobody's waiting on the Samsung television feature department to fix a smart TV eight years old.

Another benefit (this one for the manufacturer, not for you) is that Android has a bunch of developers and existing libraries. Linux does too, but for devices using a single screen and basic user interface, the Android developers are already familiar using Android's tools to write apps with that type of interface.

These don't make Android a requirement. A general Linux-based open TV or ereader platform would work well too. But we don't have those. Well, I think Kodi is kind of like an open smart TV platform but as I recall it has trouble with a lot of streaming services because of DRM problems. Nothing is perfect, and in this landscape often nothing is very good, but some things are less bad than others and Android can sometimes get things to the less bad point.