After what’s felt like an eternity on Android 12, Google announced today at its Google I/O developer conference in California that the codebase that underpins some 220 million devices a month is getting an update to Android 14.
The nomenclature gets a little weird since we’re talking about Android TV and Google TV — both of which run on a bunch of devices that might or might not be televisions. But the bottom line is that at some point in the relatively near future, your favorite Android TV device should be running a version that’s less than three years old.
Also complicating matters more is that the Android version ain’t nothing but a number, and there are all sorts of other things that go into ensuring that the operating system you’re using is relatively fresh and secure. Take, for instance, the new Onn 4K Pro Streaming Device, which just took the place of Chromecast with Google TV on our list of the best streaming hardware. It’s running Android 12, but also has the March security update. So it’s not like you’re actually using software that’s three years old.
All that said, you’ll have a number of things to look forward to. In addition to the usual performance improvements, Google also says to expect new energy modes to help reduce power consumption in standby mode. There also will be new accessibility features for color correction and enhanced text options, as well as better navigation. And perhaps even more important to everyone will be better multitasking thanks to an improved picture-in-picture mode.
Again, this news is coming out of a developer conference, and some of it is geared toward the platform itself — Android TV — and some of it is new tools for developers to implement into their apps.
But that will all eventually mean a better end user experience for the eyeballs watching the things.
