You know, this might just be us, but we don’t see many people giving Android tablets the same kind of attention that they give Apple’s. Well, Google’s giving them a little more notice, and has announced “Entertainment Space”, a one-stop-shop for all your entertainment sources on your Android tablet.
Google’s here to entertain you
It’s effectively a central location that puts all of your books, movies, series, and games in one place, conveniently just one screen to the left of the home screen. The feature draws from the apps you subscribe to for your daily dopamine dose. Once you’re signed into them, you’ll see their content popping up in the hub. It’s like the entertainment section of a smart TV, just tablet-sized.
Google mentions Hulu, Twitch and Google TV as places you’ll see content showing up from in the “Watch” tab, but leaves Netflix out. You’ll see the app itself in the “recently used” section, but its actual content offering will remain hidden. This is because the streaming giant prefers not to have its content sidled up next to that offered by other services, says The Verge.
There’s also a “Games” tab, which will, naturally, house a selection of games from the Google Play store. There’s a “continue playing” section so you can pick up where you left off in some of your recently played titles, as well as a recommended section for when you get tired of Minecraft. Google also get a row for games you can hop into without downloading them, for instant entertainment.
Finally, there’s a “Books” tab. This draws content from your Google Play Books library, putting up recommendations and links to whatever you’re currently reading. You’ll also find your audiobooks here.
Curiously, the feature is coming first to Walmart’s onn. tablets. These are, as you could probably guess, not particularly easy to find in South Africa. Impossible, even. But Google says Entertainment Space will be added to tablets made by “Lenovo, Sharp and more” later on. There’s suspiciously no mention of Samsung tablets, unless they’re included in the “and more” tag. But we don’t think that possibly the most well-known Android tablets would be reduced to an “and more” offering. We could be wrong. Time will tell.