Android 14 for TV will bring some welcome performance improvements

The big Android 14 for TV update will boost performance with faster boot times, scrolling, and app launches

Android 14 for TV will bring some welcome performance improvements
  • The next version of Android TV OS, Android 14 for TV, will improve boot latency, cold start-up times, and scrolling performance.
  • These changes were announced during the Google I/O 2024 developer conference last week.
  • Android 14 for TV will also reduce standby power use and bring other highly requested features.

To cut down on costs, TV makers tend to source pretty underpowered hardware for their devices compared to what smartphone and tablet makers use. In a lot of ways, it makes sense to do so since TVs aren’t general-purpose computers that have to keep a bunch of apps open. For most people, a TV with a low amount of onboard storage and memory is fine so long as its chipset can efficiently decode high-quality video and audio data streamed from the Internet. However, some TVs ship with such underpowered hardware that even basic things like scrolling and launching an app can feel sluggish. Fortunately, Google has optimized the upcoming Android 14 for TV update to reduce some of these pain points.

Android 14 for TV is the latest version of the Android TV OS platform, which is the underlying operating system of Google TV. It was announced last week at the Google I/O developer conference and will be coming to select consumer devices later this year. When Google first announced the update, they mentioned it would be “snappier and more responsive” than previous versions. However, their blog post didn’t have any specific details on how Android 14 for TV is snapper and more responsive than Android 12 for TV. Fortunately, Googlers elaborated a bit further on what these performance improvements are during the “what’s new on Google TV and the Android TV OS” session streamed on YouTube.