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Google TV Now Hibernates Apps And Better Responds To Remotes

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The Google TV user experience has recently seen improvements in two important areas – storage and performance. If all this sounds familiar, that’s because Google TV got an update in August of last year that also looked to improve performance and storage. Presumably, this is the big performance and storage update for 2023.

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Google TV is now available on a wide variety of devices including streaming players and smart TVs. Due to this, any improvements that are made have the potential to affect a number of users across device types and manufacturers.

In terms of storage, Google says it has managed to reduce the amount of storage space used by reducing app sizes and hibernating background apps. The latter of which is a new feature that will automatically force apps into a hibernation mode when they haven’t been used for more than 30 days.

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As for actually reducing the size of an app, this is achieved through the use of Android App Bundles, a feature Google uses to reduce app sizes on Android in general. According to Google, the use of app bundles has resulted in the size of Google TV apps being reduced by roughly 25%.

Google says that both of these storage-based improvements have already rolled out to devices, so there is nothing for users to do to enable either.

As for the performance boost, this is more of an across the board improvement. For example, Google points to faster responses after pressing a button on the remote, the time it takes for Google TV to wake up, and the length of time the animation is shown when the device is booting up. Basically, Google TV users should notice a faster experience in general.

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Similar to the storage improvements, Google says that the performance upgrades have also already rolled out to devices.

John Finn

By John Finn

John started Streaming Better to help consumers navigate the live TV streaming and subscription service landscape. John has been editing and writing about technology and streaming for online publications since 2014, and believes the best streaming approach is to rotate between services as needed.

John's preferred live TV streaming service right now is YouTube TV although he does tend to switch live TV services multiple times each year to keep up to date with their changes. Outside of live TV, John also actively streams HBO Max (for the shows), Peacock (for Premier League), and Paramount Plus (for Champion's League). However, John is also currently subscribed to Apple TV+, Discovery+, Hulu, Starz, Showtime, and Shudder.

Contact John via email at john@streamingbetter.com or say hi on Twitter

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