Pictures: Google TV’s new interface

By Scott Younker October 31, 2011

Google TV hasn’t been one of Google’s success stories. It was plagued with interface problems and is still being blocked by major TV networks from searching their content. That alone might be a cause for its lack of popularity.

However, Google hasn’t given up on GTV and is updating the system. It’s more of an overhaul, really. There are four big ones that you should be aware of.

First, Google cleaned up the interface and made it much simpler and easier to understand. The look reminds us of Google’s tablet UI “Honeycomb,” though Google isn’t officially labeling it as such. Still, it’s a step forward.

Previously the search system was a bit broken. Google improved searching and has improved how you search for programs to watch. They’ve also figured out a way to help you search for something if even if you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for.

Android apps are being added to Google TV. We’re not sure how some of the touchscreen based ones will translate to TV (if they will at all) but the idea seems good on paper. YouTube viewing and searching has been improved as well. For example, if you are into watching videos of Pugs you can create a Pug video channel so that you can find as many Pug videos as you desire.

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, Google TV is still being blocked by all of the major TV networks from browsing their content. The updates are nice but that will be the biggest hurdle to GTV gaining popularity.

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