Your Chromecast with Google TV should become much better at saving you space next year

I honestly don’t have to recount to you how laggy and slow the Chromecast with Google TV can be at times. It clearly doesn’t have enough RAM to perform the tasks it needs to, and don’t even get me started with the storage issue. Actually, as much as I don’t want to go there, I think I need to.

Over on the Android Developer’s Blog, Google just revealed that by next year, all apps that run on Android TV and Google TV must adhere to their app bundle protocol. For those of you who are aware, App Bundles (AAB format) are a way for the Play Store to distribute experiences that are 20% smaller in their install size than traditional apps that ship in one piece. They work on Android 5.0 and above, have lower uninstall rates, and are safer for the end user.

Google isn’t playing around either. Instead of giving developers a much longer period of time to implement AAB, it’s sticking to a six month period (May 2023). The blog post even goes so far as to state that one engineer could set this up over three days, clearly pointing out that it’s not difficult and should be a priority as the deadline approaches.

What does this mean for you? Well, on your Android TV set-top boxes and your Chromecast with Google TV, you should be able to archive apps you’re not using as often to reclaim space. More importantly, as your smart TV dongle sits plugged in with more space available at any given time, it should perform a bit better. Let me know in the comments if you’re excited about this? I’m still firmly in the camp that thinks Google is doing whatever it can to optimize the technology, but believes we’re long overdue for a more powerful device with a larger storage capacity!