The new tabs appear below the carousel of application shortcuts on the TV's home screen.
Android TV 14 is the latest operating system for Android-powered TVs
Google is updating the Android TV home screen with new tabs for promotional categories, as per claims on social media. The Android TV experience is almost on the verge of being phased out in favour of Google TV, but some low-end TVs or older models still run the operating system (OS). For them, the tech giant is said to have made changes, with three new tabs joining the existing Play Next bar on the interface's home page.
User @aniruddhdodiya shared an image of the updated Android TV home screen in a post on Reddit. It shows four new tabs featuring promoted categories on the home page — Play Next, Top Selling Movies, Popular Movies and Shows, and Trending on Google. This is said to appear below the carousel of application shortcuts on the TV.
The new tabs on Android TV home screen
Photo Credit: Reddit/ aniruddhdodiya
These tabs already appear on the Google TV home screen and have now been introduced on the Android TV experience as well.
This change is expected to be a server-side change since the TV does not have a new update and runs on Android 9.0, far from the latest Android 14 TV OS that the latest TVs come with.
Notably, previous reports suggest Google has made changes in the release schedule of the Android TV OS. It is said to ditch an yearly release model in favour of a bi-yearly release strategy for updates. The company reportedly skipped on shipping out Android TV 15, based on the Android 15 OS. It is expected to directly release Android 16 in 2026.
While this is a recent announcement, it is not the first time that the company has skipped out on OS updates. It did not roll out the Android 13 TV update and directly released Android TV 14 last year.
Since older models and low-end TVs usually run the Android TV OS, Google also lowered the RAM requirements in November 2024. TVs are now required to have 1GB of RAM, compared to the previous 1.5GB demand. It would allow TVs to output in 1080p resolution, whereas 4K streaming would still require 1.5GB of RAM.
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