After rolling out a redesign of Material You in December, the Google TV Android app is now readying a home screen widget.
With version 4.38.7.4 (from December) Google TV appears in the list of Widgets, but it’s clearly not ready. The preview says the default size is 4×5 and it cannot be smaller than that when placed on a home screen. However, it can take up your entire screen.
For now, all you get is a short bar where “Google TV” is flanked by search (opens the keyboard) and remote shortcuts. Touching the center just opens the app’s Home tab.
Considering the size, it looks like Google TV will display content recommendations directly on the widget, which other streaming services (eg Hulu and Netflix) offer.
Over the past few months, Google has prepared other widgets in contacts and the Google app (currently broken and just action blocks). This trio of widgets could be announced at the same time. At the moment the screenshots are from a Pixel 7 Pro running Android 13 QPR2 beta. The widget does not load properly on other/older devices we have verified.
The company could be gearing up for the Pixel tablet. In September, it introduced the concept of tablet-optimized widgets. Today, Google Keep puts shortcuts on the right, while the Drive widget offers more actions on larger screens.
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