A Reddit user has recently spotted a new development on the Android TV platform, and that is the ability to remotely install apps onto your Android TV directly from your smartphone.
Android TV has long offered users the ability to install Android TV apps from a computer or laptop, by opening the Google Play Store from a web browser. However, this hardly offers the convenience that the same functionality would on our daily driver—which is nearly always in our hand or pocket.
Most people peruse the Google Play Store from their phone, which they can always access on the go, rather than from their laptop. This means that if you see an app you'd like to download to your Android TV as you're browsing your phone, it would be a much more streamlined process to send it off to download directly from the comfort of your couch (or wherever you are).
Naturally, this newfound feature is only going to be available for Android-running phones. Which shouldn't be a nuisance for anyone, since most iPhone users get Apple TV anyway.
While Google hasn't officially announced a new ability to download Android TV apps from a smartphone, the Redditor avigi who brought it to our attention has posted a screenshot of the new feature they are clearly seeing on their device. The photo shows a drop-down menu under the "Install" button in the Play Store, displaying the user's Android TV OS device that shares the same account as their phone.
However, neither PhoneArena, nor 9to5Google (who picked up on the news first), could find or access such a feature on any company devices, which makes us believe that the update is currently undergoing a testing phase, and is only rolling out to an unspecified group of select users.
We still have no knowledge of when this feature will be fully rolled out to all Android TV users, but if it's already being tested out on some users, it will likely be soon.
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