Android TV Apps to be Screened And Approved by Google Before Release to Play Store

[dgstorm]

According to Google's new policy outline for Android TV, they will be screening all Android TV apps to approve them before posting them on the Play Store. While this policy would obviously not work when it comes to the Android OS for phones and tablets, this probably makes sense for a device like Android TV. Google needs to keep it more unified in order to maintain the same intended user experience from device to device. This especially makes sense to do for Android Car since that needs to be as "cut and dry" as possible.

Here's a quote of their policy,

Before distributing apps to the Play Store on Android TV devices, our team reviews apps for usability with a DPAD (apps) and Gamepad (games only) and other quality guidelines.

After the string of bad apps that showed up on the GoogleTV, this is probably a good idea. What do you think?

 

[gadgetrants]

Guess I don't buy the reasoning that this is about "UI uniformity." Instead, I think that EVERYONE trying to build a smart TV has suffered from the same problem, which is getting a decent range of (read: network TV) content. My theory is that Google is trying to build a walled garden for their TV system, so they can guarantee to the content providers they are currently courting that they can block backdoor access to "unauthorized" content versus a 3rd party TV app. Just think "Aereo" and you'll get my logic.

-Matt