Android TV system updates are less crucial than their phone counterpart, but they’re still a good sign of commitment from a manufacturer. For years now, the Nvidia Shield TV series has been stuck on Android 9 and, now, the company has confirmed it won’t see Android 10 at all.
In a forum post that quietly went up last month, Nvidia directly confirmed that the Shield TV will not be upgraded to Android TV 10. The company explains that this is because that version of the platform has “[essentially] no impact to end users.”
True to that statement, Android TV 10 has virtually no notable user-facing changes and only tweaks a few things behind the scenes. As we’ve said before, Android TV system updates are not nearly as important as the apps installed on the device. Android TV 12 is a considerably bigger update that would make much more sense for Nvidia to make the jump to. Thankfully, the company also confirmed that development is still “full steam ahead” for the Shield, despite not sharing any key details.
SHIELD development is still full steam ahead, we just had a release not too long ago. Android 10 was a no-op for android TV so we decided to skip it as the effort was large and there was essential no impact to end users other than the version string changing. Behond that, we don’t talk about our Roadmap ahead of time anymore, but i can tell you there is still a lot of development going into SHIELD.
On another Android TV device, the TiVo Stream 4K, it does seem that a system update is incoming. The device, which launched on Android 9, will apparently see Android 10 in some capacity if a listing from the Google Play Console (via @AndroidTV_Rumor) is to be believed.
More on Android TV:
- Xbox Game Pass adds basic Android TV/Google TV support with homescreen icon
- Everything new in Android TV 12: tweaked design, privacy toggles, ‘Quick Connect,’ more [Gallery]
- Marvel pushing Shang-Chi on Android TV w/ one of the first ads for content you can’t watch
Author: Ben Schoon
Source: 9TO5Google