- What Is Google TV?
- How Can I Write Apps for Google TV?
- What Kinds of Apps Can or Should I Write for Google TV?
- How Can I Optimize My Web Application for Google TVs?
- How Can I Write Native Android Applications for Google TVs?
- Conclusion
How Can I Optimize My Web Application for Google TVs?
Your existing website and web applications, including those using HTML5 and Flash, can target the Google TV. At this time, Google TVs are running Chrome 5 and supports Flash 10.1. What’s one of the big benefits of this approach? You can reach users right away.
Optimizing your websites for display on a high-definition television screen involves many common-sense tweaks. You’ll hear a lot of Google TV developers talk about “the 10-foot experience.” This simply acknowledges the fact that Google TV users sit at some distance from the screen and developers need to adjust their application’s user experience to suit this typical use case. Screens should be simple and elegant, using extra-large, readable fonts and graphics. There’s quite a bit more wide screen real estate to work with, but scrolling is less appealing and navigation needs (typically by D-pad) to be simple and straightforward. Some color schemes will need to be adjusted for the high contrast and saturation levels typical of televisions. Finally, you’ll want to come up with a high resolution favicon so that your website looks slick in the Chrome bookmarks and other references. When it comes to Flash, you’ll want to check out Adobe’s recommendations for optimizing Flash apps for televisions.
To get started with web app development for Google TV, you’ll want to start with the Google TV Web Developer’s Guide, where you can read all about these issues, and a whole bunch more.