What you need to know
- Google is planning on renaming Android TV as Google TV.
- The renaming would take the platform back to its origins.
- In 2014, Google shifted its focus from a previous smart TV platform called Google TV to Android TV, which was designed to be closer in nature to the Android operating system.
Android TV may soon be the next subject of a string of rebrandings by the Mountain View giant hoping to assert its own name over its products, with 9to5Google citing an inside source that suggests that the company is planning on renaming Android TV as Google TV.
The renaming would bring the company's smart TV platform full circle, as the predecessor to Android TV was also called — wait for it! — Google TV. Back then, Google decided to rebrand its revamped smart TV platform to more closely resemble its mobile operating system, both technically and by name. Now, it seems the company wants to decouple the two.
Google pulled a similar move last month, replacing the 'Hangouts' in Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet with its own name.
Of course, while the company may be asserting its branding over its products more aggressively, it most certainly doesn't mean that the Android brand itself is going anywhere. Android is, after all, the most popular mobile operating system in the world and one of the most recognizable brands in the world; scrapping it would be tantamount to corporate suicide.
