Even though Logitech had tried to play it cool when its Revue boxes claimed to ship with the Google TV update pre-installed, the cat is officially out of the bag this time. The update for Google TV is on its way and should land on existing hardware early next week.
The newest version of Google TV will bring a nicely revamped user interface that may make it almost enjoyable to use. The update cleans up most of everything, offering up an easier way to navigate through menu options and a handful of new features. A new addition that should please many is the introduction of HBOGo, which should beat the hell out of having to use the web browser to access the site.
The most exciting new feature for Google TV is that the Android Market will now be available. Of course, we’re still up in the air as to how nice it will be, as there likely won’t be too many applications optimized for larger screen sizes but we can imagine that will change going forward. Since the latest update is built off of Android 3.1 Honeycomb, there should at least be a few interesting applications to take advantage of out of the box. In addition to having your smartphone double up as a remote, it can now be used as a gaming controller for games as well.
While the Honeycomb update for Google TV may not be enough for most people to actually pick up a Revue or Sony TV/Blu-Ray player, those who jumped the gun and bought one a while back should be happy to see the new changes. Even though it was promised to land sometime this summer, we’re glad to see that Google TV is actually getting the update this year. Now let’s just hope that the next update (whatever it may be) won’t take this freakin’ long.
The update is said to roll out early next week to Sony devices first, with Logitech Revue boxes to follow shortly afterwards.
[Via: Google TV Blog]