According to social media reports, Google is adding new promotional category tabs to the Android TV home screen. The Android TV experience is on the cusp of being phased out in favor of Google TV, although some low-end or older models continue to run the operating system. For these, the tech titan is claimed to have made tweaks, with three new tabs joining the current Play Next bar on the interface's main page.
Android TV Home Screen Update
Reddit user @aniruddhdodiya posted an image of the revised Android TV home screen. On the home page, four new tabs highlighting promoted categories appear: Play Next, Top Selling Movies, Popular Movies and Shows, and Trending on Google. This is claimed to appear underneath the TV's carousel of application shortcuts.
These tabs are already present on the Google TV home screen and have been added to the Android TV experience as well.
This is likely to be a server-side modification because the TV does not have a fresh update and operates on Android 9.0, which is older than the newest Android 14 TV OS seen on newer TVs.
Notably, earlier reports claim that Google has changed the release date for the Android TV OS. It is believed to abandon a yearly release plan in favor of a biannual release approach for upgrades. The business apparently postponed launching Android TV 15, which is based on the Android 15 operating system. It is believed that Android 16 will be released straight in 2026.
While this is a new statement, the corporation has previously postponed OS upgrades. It did not push out the Android 13 TV upgrade, instead releasing Android TV 14 last year.
Since older models and low-end TVs often run the Android TV OS, Google reduced the RAM requirements in November 2024. TVs must now contain 1GB of RAM, down from 1.5GB previously. It would enable TVs to broadcast in 1080p quality, but 4K streaming would still require 1.5GB of RAM.
