Alongside the new Android 14 Beta 3 builds, Google has also quietly released the first builds of Android TV 14 based on Android 14! Only emulator builds are available now. Alongside this, Google seems to be retiring Android TV 13 (!)
The documentation for Android TV 14 isn’t available yet and neither are ADT-3 builds. Speaking of the ADT-3, I reached out to Google about the status of its successor, the ADT-4, earlier today and will let you all know if I hear back.
A new code change titled “don’t recommend Android TV Tiramisu” was just merged in AOSP with the description “we are retiring T as a version in Android TV. Moving the T image to the non-recommended menu should dissuade developers from creating T images
if not required.”
This code change was spotted by 9to5Google. In an upcoming release of Android Studio Canary with the latest AVD Manager, when you select an Android TV 13 image, you’ll see that “Tiramisu is an unsupported Android TV version.”
A source has informed me that Google informed Android TV partners a few days back that they would no longer certify builds based on Android TV 13. They didn’t really give a reason why they’re discontinuing Android TV 13, just that they’re increasing their focus on Android TV 14, which could be a big release for the platform.
We have reached out to Google for comment on this news.
MORE DETAILS:
Google’s requirement to support 2 OS upgrades* will mostly stay unchanged. That means, for example, a retail device that launched on Android TV 10 will now have to update to Android TV 14 as their its release, instead of ending at Android TV 13.
There are two exceptions:
- Retail devices that launch with Android TV 11 can update directly to Android TV 14 as their final update.
- Operator Tier devices that launch on Android TV 10 can stay on Android TV 12 as their final release.
The launch windows for Android TV 11 and Android TV 12 will remain unchanged, but devices can remain on Android TV 11 for longer as Google will be providing security patch backports throughout 2024.
What is Android TV’s 2 OS upgrade requirement? It’s not what you think: Instead of requiring makers of retail Android TV/Google TV products to go from N to N+2, they’re required to go from N to N+3.
Huh?
The thing is, to get to N+3, they’re allowed to skip a release. So they can start at N and go to N+1 then N+3, making that 2 OS upgrades, or they can start at N and go to N+2 then N+3. In essence, this makes sure that retail TV products get 3 OS version upgrades though TV makers only actually have to do 2 OS updates.