The only problem is, those "Android TV" boxes aren't actually running the Android TV OS, but the stock Android OS with a third-party launcher (to mimic the official Android TV launcher to some extent), so I'm not sure if an Android TV-compatible app will actually work on a "Android TV" box with an Android TV-compatible interface. If anything on those boxes, you'd likely just get the standard Android interface used on Android phones and tablets, for example.
JRiver for Android with an Android TV-compatible interface will likely work with a Nvidia Shield TV or a Mi Box, since those are official Android TV boxes running the official Android TV OS.
That's true. There is actually a (community-made) Android TV build for my box, though I don't use it because it's so limiting compared to normal Android.
So, yes, let me amend my feature requests
In order to be useful on my setup, whatever interface JRiver Android provides would need to:
- Not require Android TV. If it's possible to make an app that runs on both TV and normal Android, that'd be ideal (not sure if that's possible)
- Or, two builds - one for TV and one normal Android.
- I would think the non-TV one would be reasonably easy to produce once a TV one is available? Just strip out the special TV APIs with the home screen integration, and let it run as a normal full-screen app?
- Be navigable with the standard key presses, eg up/down/left/right + enter/OK as with standard Theatre View. Then it can work with whatever kind of remote control device the user throws at it.
If that can be done (eventually), then that would be perfect: it'd work on both Android TV and non-TV devices, which would include the full gamut of "android boxes".
If the new build is Android TV specific then I will certainly give it a go, installing the TV build instead of the normal Android build to try it out. However it will be pretty limiting, so I doubt I will be able to stick with it.
The reason Android TV is so limiting is that the majority of streaming/catch-up TV apps do not have an Android TV version. At least they didn't last I checked. There's a Netflix, YouTube and BBC iPlayer, but not any of the other UK TV stations (ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, UKTV). I don't think there's an Amazon Prime app, either. The iPlayer app only exists because NVidia sponsored it for the Shield, I believe.
This limits my ability with Android TV to provide a single device that can both play my pre-recorded media, and access all the streaming services we use.
To be honest, if I'd had to choose between supporting normal Android or Android TV, I'd have gone for the former. I don't have hard data to back this up, but my feeling is there are more likely purchasers of J River in the former category. The Shield is a great device, but very expensive. There's a huge userbase out there with the sort of "android box" that I have - evidenced in part by the YouTube channels reviewing them with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. And a lot of people have devices like the Amazon Fire TV, on which it's possible to sideload apps (they do it all the time with Kodi) but which don't run Android TV and never will. Being able to advertise JRiver as a better alternative to Kodi could bring in a lot of users.
Anyway that's just my guess, I might be wrong. My main point is that I do hope that JRiver Android won't specifically require Android TV, because that will certainly limit my own interest in it, and I think that applies to a lot of other potential users as well.
Either way, I'll definitely be interested to try out the software when it's ready.