As Google urges its Google TV/Android TV hardware partners to up their hardware game by including more memory and processing horsepower in their smart TVs and other streaming gadgets, the company is announcing efficiency improvements in the latest version of its Google TV software.
As part of a software update that's unfurling to Google TV devices over the next several months, the company said users will immediately notice CPU performance improvements.
"Through CPU optimizations and improvements to cache management, we’ve reduced the time it takes for the Google TV home screen to load at startup so you can start browsing shows and movies faster," Google said in a blog post published Monday.
Specifically, the tech company said that the "For You" tab performance is smoother, with smoother quicker switching between tabs.
The Live tab also loads quicker, with users seeing less of the loading animation when switching between tabs. Kids profiles have been updated, as well, with caching optimization reducing the time it takes to switch to kids profiles and start viewing content.
"And, we’ve eliminated the latency between loading a kids profile to starting an app," Google said.
Memory efficiency has also been improved
A “Free up storage” menu in the settings now allows users to clear their cache and uninstall apps they're not using -- a definite plus when the average SVOD app can consume half a gigabyte of storage all on its own, and some devices only have around 4GB of memory
This feature has already rolled out to Google's own Chromecast with Google TV dongle.
"We’ve also made some under-the-hood changes to how Google TV handles app installations so that fewer users see storage-related errors when trying to install a new app," Google added. "And, we’ve implemented an automated process that runs in the background and frees up space on your device so that you can install more apps."
