The company says it did this so that the Google TV home screen loads faster, reducing the time before you can choose what content to watch. Google says it achieved the performance improvements “through CPU optimizations and cache management improvements,” and that they’re rolling out to third-party devices and “coming soon” to Chromecasts. It’s faster to get to the home screen and more responsive when you do According to the post, users should see faster performance in several areas — when loading the Live tab, scrolling through the home screen, or using a child profile. Some of these improvements, according to the company, are due to the fact that Google TV itself uses less RAM, leaving more for apps, especially when switching between different screens. The company is also responding to complaints that surfaced about how storage limitations can make it difficult to install apps for Google TV, especially on devices like Chromecast, which actually only has 5GB of usable space, according to Android Police. Google says it’s added a menu to Settings > System > Storage that will let you free up space by clearing the device’s cache and uninstalling apps, which have been released on Chromecast and will soon be released on smart TVs. It also says there’s an “automated process running in the background” to free up space for apps. With recent reports about Google looking to integrate mobile devices and free-to-air channels into Google TV, it looks like the company could be gearing up to push users towards its big screen experience. If that’s the plan, it makes sense that he’s trying to improve the basics now. However, as people need more and more apps to keep up with the growing number of streaming services, it may be time for hardware manufacturers (including Google) to consider upgrading the storage that comes with Google TV devices. While software tricks can help reduce the number of low storage error messages, there’s really no substitute for simply having more space.
