Android Icon
We received the upgrade notice Dec. 12, clicked to update and the Honeycomb build downloaded over the air to our Revue and TV in about 5 minutes without a hitch. The cute little Android robot, munching popcorn, is an icon tailored for the Google TV experience. It’s the screen saver!
Original
The Google TV interface on Logitech Revue, before the upgrade.
Home Screen
The Honeycomb home screen. Note from left to right icons for time, notifications, All Apps TV, TV & Movies App, Netflix, YouTube, Android Market, Chrome, and Search.
Notifications
Notifications are handy to tell people when their Google TV apps have been updated.
Android Market
The Android Market home screen. Google is starting off with hundreds of applications, including 50 applications optimized for TV, such as Pandora, Flixster and CNBC.
Google Music
We selected the new Google Music app for download to our Google TV set.
Music
Once we entered our Google Music credentials, our music collection zipped right to the big screen for search and play.
Pearl Jam
We picked Pearl Jam’s new live album to test. What’s cool is the music played in the background while we browsed other applications for our Google TV Honeycomb first hands-on.
Netflix
Google did a nice job with the new Netflix app redesign for Google TV, offering a three-rail view, placing the controls in the middle, below the scene in content where users left off. The left rail now lets users browse other Netflix content.
TV & Movies App
Google used to offer a standalone app for Amazon, from which we accessed Amazon Instant Video. Instead, that content has been blended into an all-in-one TV and Movies app, where users sift through content from Netflix, Amazon, TV and other sources.
-Sons of Anarchy’
A selection of “Sons of Anarchy” surfaces in our options. We notice the filter to choose available now and free content. We click it.
GTV Sons 2
The choices include content on Netflix and Amazon.
YouTube
Heres the redesigned YouTube app, with personalization clips and subscriptions.
YouTube, Personalized
The bigger story here is that YouTube is going to become an increasingly more crucial component of Google TV. YouTube has been more closely integrated with Google TV search, which allows users to fashion topics such as clips on cooking or music into a channel. Note video uploads are now surfaced.
Channels
Channels that we followed on YouTube show up here as well.