A lot has been made over the years of how Android tablets are good for media consumption and gaming, and maybe less good at everything else. Now Google seems to be embracing the media consumption thing big time – the company is rolling out a new Entertainment Space experience for Android tablets that puts the focus firmly on video, games, and eBooks.
Launching first on some Walmart Onn tablets later this month, Entertainment Space will be available on other tablets from companies including Lenovo and Sharp later this year.
Here’s the idea: instead of firing up different apps to find the content you’re looking for, you’ll just be able to navigate your media and games by selecting Watch, Games, or Read tabs at the top of the screen to view available content in a grid.
The user interface is built into a new home screen/app launcher app from Google, and it reminds me a lot of what Amazon’s been doing with its Amazon Fire tablets for years. They ship with an Android fork called Fire OS that has a custom user interface that puts your free or purchased content front and center by laying it out on a sort of digital book shelf.
One thing that makes Google’s Entertainment Space experience different is that you’re not limited to viewing content from one provider (like Amazon or Google). You can sign into supported apps and view movies, TV shows, and other contents all in one space. Google says in addition to YouTube and Google TV, the Watch tab will show content from Hulu, Twitch, and “many additional services.”
Another thing that’s different is that while the user interface is a bit different from stock Android, under the hood Google’s Entertainment Space is running on Android rather than a fork like Fire OS. And that means you don’t have to jump through any hoops to install the Google Play Store or other third-party apps. It’s pre-installed.
This isn’t the first time google has introduced a custom user interface that can alter the look and feel of Android. Last year the company introduced Kids Space for children’s tablets.
Wtf is this anyway? I really need a way to remove this from my tablet. I did not give permission for it to install and this take up a llt of my memory for literally nothing but asvertising. Can anyon help remove this or disable it at least?
Hey here’s a question! How do you turn off this utter POS no one asked for?
Either don’t buy a tablet that comes with it, or install a third-party launcher app.
Brad, it just started on my 4 month old tablet. I would never have bought a tablet with this crap on it but now I’m stuck with it
Should have said it just appeared…no warning, no permission.
We used to have this excellent app where you could access everything without jumping between ten-twenty different apps. It was called a “File Manager”. 😉 Jokes aside, I find it insulting that Google put so much time into things like this for Android, when it’s still largely impossible to have decent ways to handle common workflows, customize the OS, etc. For every new release we have less options and more crap… For the moment I feel like I’ll stay on the last Android version to have a tile based app switcher forever, because the “lottery wheel app switcher” (swipe it and see which app comes up!) which is the only alternative these days isn’t really an option. But I digress…
So it’s basically a hub for entertainment, some of it from Google’s services, some of it from other platforms, some of which will have their own service fees.
Seems like it’s essentially the Android TV home screen, but inside an app, but for tablets?