Google TV's First Apps

Google announced some of the initial content partners for Google TV: Turner Broadcasting, NBC Universal, HBO, Netflix, Amazon. The list is far from impressive, but this is just the beginning.

At launch, Google TV will run Android 2.1 and will include Chrome 5.0 and Adobe Flash 10.1. Google will pre-load a few high-quality apps like Pandora, Netflix, NBA, while the Android Market will be available early next year, after Google releases the SDK.

The good news is that web apps could work well on a TV if they are properly designed. YouTube Leanback is a great example of web app optimized for Google TV. Since it's not easy to develop web apps for TVs, Google offers some guidelines: TV interfaces should be simple, navigation and content are very important, the app should take advantage of the wide screen.

Google TV has an Apple-esque site and will start to be available this month on devices made by Sony and Logitech. "One of our goals with Google TV is to finally open up the living room and enable new innovation from content creators, programmers, developers and advertisers," says Google's Ambarish Kenghe.