Google announces new Google TV features with a crazy-long roll-out window

Your overall Google TV experience is set to get a bit better in the somewhat-near future thanks to a few updates Google has announced that are on the way for the Google TV interface. These aren’t exactly massive, sweeping changes to the overall experience, but the tweaks should make for a far smoother navigation once they do eventually roll out to most users. While it may take a ridiculously long time for these updates to arrive, it looks like they’ll be nice once they do get here.

Circular App Icons

Google is parting ways with square and rectangular app icons. When this new update hits, your Google TV home screen will feature a modernized look with circular app icons. Again, this won’t exactly change how you navigate things, but I think the circular icons look more in line with Google’s overall aesthetic and it should help users differentiate between apps and shows on display.

Free TV Channels Shortcut

Google TV will also make it easier to find those free entertainment items with a new shortcut to free TV channels within the “Your apps” row. Users will be able to more-easily discover movies, local news, sports, and more without those downloads, fees, or subscriptions. These days, anything free feels like a massive win, right?

More Apps, Less Searching

Google TV will also expand the “Your apps” row, putting more apps in this area so you can get to them a bit quicker right from the home screen. While having to endlessly scroll through apps has never been an issue for me with Google TV (thanks in large part to the paltry storage available on basically every model that forces you app library to stay quite small), I like the ability to get to my most used apps more quickly right from the home screen. And they are adding a few quick shortcuts at the end of the “Your apps” row to help reorganize your existing apps or find new ones a bit quicker.

The longest roll-out ever?

These new updates will be released to all Google TV devices in the “coming months” according to Google. For an update that is basically just reorganizing a few, key things, I’m not sure why in the world the availability window is so wide. If we were talking about a full overhaul of the software or a major Android TV update, I could understand. But this feels a tad strange. At some point – perhaps by summertime – we’ll see this arrive. As we’ll all likely forget about it by then, it will be a fun surprise, at least.