Google TV plans to make signing into Netflix or other streamers automatic
Google may be planning to make its TV platform more user-friendly by offering automatic sign-ins into subscription services upon installation. The revelation is tucked into the code of the newest TV app version, reports 9to5 Google, and reads that "apps for your subscriptions will also be installed. App info from devices linked to your Google Account will be used to set up and sign in to these apps on your TV."
This could be interpreted as using the credentials stores into your Google account, such as user names and passwords, to automatically fill in and sign into various services like Netflix, Spotify, newspapers, and other subscriptions.
At present, even if you log into your Google account and transfer all of your apps, you'd still have to sign to each service individually which makes sense for apps like online banking. Yet when you set up your TV or media box, you'd want your shows and albums to be lined up as soon as possible.
Automating the process makes more sense and is sure to bring many a grateful comment to Google if it manages to pull that off. Still, lines of code in an app teardown can only mark intentions, but whether or not these potential goodies see the light of day is ultimately up to Google to decide from a resource perspective.
Given the ever increasing amount of subscription services we have maintain, such a sign-in automation process would give Google a competitive advantage and other players could follow suit, ushering in the brave new world of not bothering to remember login credentials for tens of subscriptions on end.
Google already allows remote Android TV app installation from your phone, so there is hope on the horizon that it will be able to unleash its software engineering prowess over automatic sign-ins as well.
Things that are NOT allowed: