Android TV homescreen gets another revamp, this time w/ some Google TV goodness – 9to5Google

Over its lifespan, Googles Android TV has seen two core designs that the company has built on top of. Google TV is set to replace what Android TV established over the next year, but now Google is bringing a lot of that experience over to current hardware. The Android TV homescreen is being updated with new personalized recommendations, a Discover tab, and more.

Starting today and rolling out over the next few weeks, Android TV devices will see an update to the homescreen, which delivers an experience thats a whole lot closer to whats seen on Google TV. Its not an exact copy, but the similarities are obvious.

The biggest change here is that, like Google TV, the Android TV homescreen is getting three tabs Home, Discover, and Apps. The main home tab (seen above) acts a lot like what Android TV already offers. It shows the sponsored row at the top with Favorite Apps and Play Next below. From there, youll have rows packed with content from apps installed on your Android TV.

Android TV also gets a new Discover tab, which is entirely new to the experience. This tab is whats most reminiscent of Google TV. Like the For You tab on those devices, whats found here includes movies and TV shows that are trending on Google Search as well as personalized recommendations. As far as we can tell, though, the Watchlist feature that makes Google TV so good is nowhere to be seen here. Finally, theres an apps tabs, which shows all installed apps as well as a link to the Google Play Store.

Google says that this redesigned homescreen will be rolling out in the United States as well as Australia, Canada, Germany, and France with more countries to follow.

This comes at an interesting time, as Google has previously said that the goal is to transition current Android TV hardware to the Google TV UI over time. Still, Google did previously tease that some features of the new UI would be ported back to Android TV, and it seems that this is the fulfillment of that promise. In a way, this also acts as a stopgap for the TVs and set-top boxes that wont be updated to the Google TV UI as a whole.

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Android TV homescreen gets another revamp, this time w/ some Google TV goodness - 9to5Google