Although the Chromecast with Google TV received mainly favorable reviews when it first arrived, performance issues and, more importantly, storage issues have subsequently plagued the gadget. A new update is currently being developed to solve both of these issues.
In order to solve the two main issues with the Chromecast and the platform as a whole, storage and performance, Google is releasing a new update for Google TV, additional Google TV devices, and the Chromecast today ( announcing ).
Google TV and Chromecast storage concerns have been well-known for a while. Only a few months after its release, reporter Kyle Bradshaw complained that the 8GB of storage space on his Chromecast, of which only 4GB is available to the user, made it impossible for him to install new apps. Performance, however, has never quite been perfect, as we pointed out in our review:
I would describe this performance as adequate. Although it is not particularly stunning, it functions generally without any significant problems. The Google TV homescreen was where I really noticed a performance slowdown using Chromecast.
Google is now at least making an effort to find software solutions to these hardware issues.
Google is emphasizing a new Free up space button in the Google TV settings menu, starting with storage. Last year, this was originally made available on Chromecast with Google TV, and it is now being made available on smart TVs with Google TV.
There have also been some storage optimizations made to Google TV. The intention is to lessen the number of times customers encounter storage-related error messages, like when attempting to install a new app. Google hasn’t specified what those improvements entail, but according to the company’s blog post, the platform will also add new automatic processes to free up storage on behalf of customers. Google informs us via email that ART/OAT artifacts and app cache files are the sources of these storage savings.
In the meanwhile, Google TV should start performing better moving forward on Chromecast and other devices. The homescreen will now launch more quickly as a result of cache management and CPU optimizations. Google also claims that moving future, the Live and For You sections will load more quickly. Improvements to image caching are said to speed up access to the Kids Profiles.
Last but not least, Google claims that Google TV will eventually utilize less RAM overall. This will free up more memory for apps and background tasks, which should improve performance overall.
Although a specific date for these improvements is not yet known, Chromecast with Google TV already offers the Free up storage option, as shown in the above image. The remaining improvements will be released via launcher updates, full OTA upgrades, and other delivery mechanisms.
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