Google TV is not the only response available to TV manufacturers to combat Apple TV

If the rumors are true, at some point this year Apple will launch its own TV set. You would think such a move would motivate the incumbent players into taking action. Yet at CES this year, a colleague and I were struck by the poor quality of user interfaces (UI) on the majority of smart TVs. Many of the major manufacturers took such small steps forward in this area that the changes were barely discernible.

The only companies that seemed to show any real innovation on this front were Samsung and LG, which added further polish to their UIs. If manufacturers are serious about providing a genuine smart-TV proposition, they must offer an advanced UI.

Some would say that, to overcome this lack of innovation in UIs, manufacturers should abandon their own platforms and use Google TV instead. Google TV has three key advantages: the large number of apps available on the Android, the large number of Android developers and the potential of the service and platform to be highly customizable.

But it is important to note that there are many other developer communities out there. What’s more, it is not that easy to port smartphone apps to smart TVs and, from what I saw at CES, differences between manufacturers’ implementations of Google TV are only skin deep. Further, as more manufacturers adopt Google TV, its role as a differentiator decreases, and users will tend to opt for whatever device is said to be the best Google TV device, much as they do now with Android phones.

This particular incarnation of Google TV looks to be far from a complete TV package, although it is better than the version we saw last year and is perhaps on a par with many of the other smart-TV UIs that were on display at CES.

With its app store up and running, Google TV should offer a flexible and relatively deep experience to users. But it still lacks content: Why would consumers purchase a TV that offers only Netflix, YouTube and some smaller services when they could buy one that provides not only other major OTT video services, but also access to their pay TV service.

It is somewhat farcical that large CE manufacturers that spend millions on R&D to develop 3D and 4K technology can’t come up with attractive UIs to complement these displays. They simply don’t have a history of this sort of engineering. But many companies do. Traditional middleware vendors such as NDS have already developed sophisticated UIs that are capable of attractively displaying content and allowing users to access services from disparate sources.

NDS’ Snowflake remains an industry leader and is leagues ahead of many smart-TV UIs. And although Technocolor’s MGo was just an app, its GUI was simple and easy-to-use and offered a consistent experience for both on-demand and linear TV viewing.

Alternatively, there are many startups that, through their open-source roots, have years of experience in delivering polished media servers to their users. Boxee has come a long way in two years, and for many, its decision to stop software downloads onto the PC will be a great loss.

With an even longer heritage is XBMC. This open-source media server has been offering advanced UIs for more than 10 years and has developed from merely playing local media to being able to access video-streaming services. And although not without problems, it, like Boxee, has a dedicated core of developers who – although developing is only a hobby for all involved – make sure it is setting a standard that many smart TVs will not reach for many years yet.

Manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung are capable of creating both excellent devices and UIs. Not everyone is, and there is no shame in being a specialist. But the companies must admit these failings and look at bringing in middleware that will allow their TVs to be truly smart. By entertaining options other than Google TV, they might very well be able to offer a genuinely distinctive device rather than yet another me-too product that is all too easily substituted for a rival’s.