Samsung's TV App Store Picks Up Steam, Downloads Top 2 Million

From DailyTech: Public reception to Sony's internet TV efforts, which put a beefy smartphone operating system (Android) in a TV, was decidedly mixed. Some customers loved the concept, despite rough edges such as interface bugs and the fact that TV networks blocked access to online TV episodes on their sites and Hulu. Others despised the product for its shortcomings.

Samsung meanwhile has been quietly pushing its own brand of internet TV sporting a less feature-rich proprietary OS. But unlike Google TV in its current form, Samsung TV already offers an app store.

The store launched in January 2010 without much celebration. It took the store over nine months to reach 1 million app downloads, but only two months after that to reach 2 million downloads worldwide. Samsung announced [press release] the landmark yesterday.

According to Samsung, its most popular apps are YouTube, Google Maps, and Texas Hold 'Em.

Some may be a bit confused at this point, as there was much fuss a little bit ago about Samsung announcing a new "Smart TV" powered by Android. Well it seems the Android platform's struggles (or lack of an app store) spooked Samsung, and the vendor -- like other TV manufacturers -- is waiting on deploying an Android product.

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