On Google TV the favorites arrive in the “Live” section of the interface: the distribution of the functionality has begun in the past few hours, and according to what the spokesmen of the company told 9to5google it will take the whole month to reach any compatible device.
The novelty will allow users to organize channels based on what they actually want to see. The change will also have some deeper implications: in particular, it will be possible to “mix” the channels coming from different services, unlike what happens when they are grouped and well divided.
As you can easily guess, to add a channel to your favorites simply activate the classic star-shaped icon: to do this you need to place your remote control on the channel name in the TV guide view and press the OK button.
Of course, pressing the name of a favorite channel will remove it. Also as shown in the screenshot below, there will be a way to activate a “favorites only” view that will filter out everything else (it is not clear if the operating system will remember the view set from time to time or if it will be necessary to manually intervene each time).
At this stage there are confirmations only for Google TV, and not for Android TV. Google TV is still very little widespread, and Mountain View’s strategy of continuing to carry out two operating systems for televisions very similar to each other (let’s say that one is a mere variant of the other, at least for now) remains not very simple to comprehend. Next-gen Chromecast aside, there is just a handful of Sony and TCL TVs, while other manufacturers continue to release Android TV-based TVs and set-top boxes.
