14 DAY TRIAL // Google TV is about to get a reboot. The touted Google TV 2.0 update may land in a few weeks, though that's been the case for quite a while now, and the hope is that it comes closer to what people were expecting the first time around.
One thing that's coming and that should alleviate some of the pains of previous buyers is more content.
One of the big complaint, and for good reason, about Google TV has been that there's not enough content especially since many broadcasters and cable channels blocked the device from their websites.
This left Google TV owners with fewer content than they would even get on their laptops. Of course, the buggy interface and other lacking features didn't help.
So Google TV hasn't been a huge hit with the general public. Google promised an update last winter, but it didn't come. The team started working on an a more ambitious revamp and a version based on Android 3.1 is now slated to land soon.
One thing that the new Google TV will boast is TBS and TNT shows, but only for TV Everywhere users who already subscribe to the cable channels.
That's both a bad thing and a good thing. On the one hand, this will enable more Google TV owners to get more content from the web on their devices and onto their TVs.
But this will also mean that they have to pay for the cable subscription to get them.
Then again, Google never made, an explicit, claim that Google TV will replace cable, in fact, it went to great lengths to show that the device and platform are actually an enhancement of the existing TV experience.
The latest move certainly underlines that direction. And Google TV 2.0 has other things up its sleeves to make it more appealing to potential buyers. Along with a price drop that could see devices, like the Logitech Revue sell for around $99, the revamped Google TV may have a much better chance at being successful this time.