Google TV Honeycomb update rolls out ‘early next Week’

Yesterday we had the pleasure of showing you all that there is a new sticker that has been attached to the Logitech Revues. It showed that the update we have all been waiting for was nearing closer. Now we finally have the official word coming in from Google TV‘s Blogspot. The highly anticipated Honeycomb update is scheduled to hit all Sony devices early next week with the Logitech Revue devices soon to follow.

The update is going to drastically improve your TV experience. The update will focus of four main areas.

1. Keep it simple

They have completely redesigned the UI that many of us have been more than slightly annoyed with. Making navigation a breeze and offer and “all apps” icon that will launch a list of your shortcuts, similar to the app drawer on your current device.

2. Make it easy to find something worth watching

To streamline your life and make finding something to watch even easier. There is a new app called ‘TV & Movies’ that will let you easily search through 80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable or satellite, Netflix, Amazon YouTube and many more.

3. Make YouTube better on TV

YouTube viewing has always been a challenging experience in my opinion on the Gtv. New enhancements have been made to bring HD-quality YouTube vids to your big screen. They have also enhanced the finding videos by more closely integrating YouTube into the Gtv search.

4. Bring more apps to TV

Finally, and one of the more requested abilities, access to the Android Market. Aps that require touchscreen, GPS or telephony services won’t show in the list of available applications. However, there are 50 developers that have already seeded the market with apps  with some applications that are sure to make you smile. The market pickings will be slim at first but expand over time.

In conjunction with this announcement they also mentioned that there should be more software updates in the coming months along with new devices sporting new chipsets from multiple hardware manufacturers.

I think new hardware is going to be key in the success of the Gtv venture. Now that the market is available we are going to need to drop in something that can handle some of our favorite games and house a slew of downloads. Until new products are launched, it will still be a bit of a novelty in my eyes. That doesn’t mean I am any less excited though. It will be like opening up a whole new toy to play with.

Source: Google TV Blog