Android vacation

Been through a lot this vacation. Constructed a stone wall outside the garden. Almost bought a motorcycle. Had a couple of job interviews. Almost got divorced. Bought an nVidia Shield. The "almost divorced" consumes a lot of energy, but we seem to be on a better track now.

The nVidia Shield was everything I ever wanted, plus bugs. It's an x86 computer running Android TV with sufficient graphics hardware. I can play videos with fairly recent encoding H.265. It of course has Netflix, I can run Kodi ("new XBMC") without any hassle, there are Android apps for the national TV stations and the kids can play games on it using the game controller. As always with Android there are a bunch of bugs, but most of the time I really enjoy this machine. Compared to the PlayStation it doesn't feel locked in, everything just works. Compared to the traditional TV, I can watch what I want, not what's on at the moment. Compared to Apple TV, I don't have to jailbreak to run what I want. Compared to a computer there is no maint.

I like the nVidia Shield so much that I've decided to port my engine to Android. Looks pretty straight-forward. That way I'll be able to release my casual retro 2D space game for my very own TV. Finally releasing for a gaming platform without that stupid touch interface! I've hated the iPhone/iPad touch interface, it's just not suited for gaming.

Just as iOS is Apple's interface perfectly fitted for a touch device, Android TV is perfectly fitted for TV with game remote. Aaahhh...ndroid. Never thought I'd say it.