Today at Google I/O, during a session on how to optimize Android apps for Google TV, the company gave its first look at a new user interface developed to highlight apps and search on the connected device OS. And we got some screenshots to share the new look and feel for Google TV devices.
The Google TV user interface is a huge step forward from the software that was released last year. Software engineer Jason Bayer said that new look and feel comes as a result of some tweaking of Google TV, including optimization to simplify the user interface. “We cut out a lot of unnecessary features and want to get people straight to their applications,” Bayer said.
So when a user hits the home screen, a menu of applications pops up on the bottom of the screen, at the same time that video is playing in the background, as seen below:
The new version of Google TV will also have a simplified search function. One of the big selling points of Google TV was supposed to be enabling users to search across live TV, VOD, DVR and even online platforms to find the content they wanted. The new version will also let users search across multiple applications, but it has a simplified interface.
Since the next version of Google TV will run on the Honeycomb OS, and apps will be distributed through the same Android Market, the Google team also showed off what the Android Market will look like on the 10-foot interface:
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