Google TV spreads holiday cheer with performance updates and new features

It’s been a good year for Google TV, highlighted by new features, design tweaks, free channels, and performance upgrades. As 2023 draws to a close, Google is spreading some holiday cheer with improvements to enhance your Google TV experience, including updates to the Live tab and more free channels.

One of the improvements that you might notice immediately the next time you load up Google TV is the overall TV interface speed and responsiveness. Google has sped things up by changing the way the home screen loads recommendation rows and by shrinking the size of the basic system apps. Google says these changes should make a notable improvement in navigation smoothness.

Google TV has also upgraded the response speed of various home screen features, by preloading content and optimizing tab loading, enabling faster search results. These improvements should help you get your content quicker without waiting for the interface to load. Changes have also been made to the setup process, which will free up more storage on your device. This includes reducing the size of less frequently used pre-installed apps, which will free up more storage space for the apps and content you actually use.

On the Live TV side of things, Google has now added two new categories to its Live tab channel guide. The “Recents” category allows for quick access to recently viewed channels, and the “Local news” category provides easy access to free local news channels. Additionally, a new “Free live news & opinion” row in the “For you” tab offers quick navigation to news channels.

Google says they are also launching 14 new free channels, including the Xumo Holiday Movie Channel, DraftKings, and Speedvision, expanding its free offerings to over 115 built-in channels available without extra downloads or subscriptions.

Finally, to wrap up the year, Google TV is bringing a little holiday cheer to users’ living rooms. The interactive Advent calendar promises daily surprises until December 25th, and the “Holidays” category on the Live tab is filled with free holiday movie and music channels. Additionally, the “Best of 2023” wrap-up will highlight the year’s most popular movies, shows, and music.

All of these updates are rolling out now, just in time for the end of the year when many of us will be enjoying downtime with family and friends on the couch, re-watching classic holiday movies, or maybe binge-watching a new show. If you don’t already own a Google TV device or if you are looking for a quick and easy gift for the techy person on your list, the Onn. 4K Streaming Box from Walmart is hard to beat. Happy streaming!