Google teased a “big announcement” for its television-based operating system yesterday, but it turns out it’s just a Youtube app update.
The update seeks to make finding content through TV controls a bit more intuitive and user-friendly. It also refreshes the interface to look more similar to the Google TV interface, which itself was overhauled a few months ago.
Of course, with the fully functional Chrome browser that comes with Google TV, users are free to browse the video sharing site like they’re used to. This also overrides problems that app versions of Youtube always have, like restricting licensed content.
A couple of the things we’ve been looking for since Google TV launched is a way to make it social – tune into a TV show and chat with others in real-time as the show’s plot unfolds. Or have an app that can intelligently predict what you want to watch and when to change the channel.
When the big Google TV update came last year, one of the things that excited users the most was the addition of the Android Market, making it finally possible to do more with a Google TV than a standard run-of-the-mill Internet-connected TV. So far, though, very few developers have worked on Google TV-exclusive apps because of very limited reach.
Now that the platform is a bit more open, we’re hoping for big things. But the question is whether it’s too little too late. We’ll wait and find out.
