Google TV

Review by eFreeware

Google TV is Google's free app for finding something to watch and keeping track of it afterward. It began life as Play Movies & TV and now does two jobs at once: it pulls together a huge catalog of movies and shows from the streaming services you already use, and it runs a shop where you can buy or rent titles outright. The main reason to consider it is that it answers the question of where a given movie or show actually lives without making you open five different apps to find out.

That sounds modest, but it is the problem most households have. You pay for a few services, you half-remember a title, and then you spend ten minutes hunting for it. Google TV is built to sit above that mess rather than replace it, which is worth understanding before you install it.

A hub for people juggling several subscriptions

The app makes most sense if you already subscribe to more than one streaming service. The developer says the catalog spans more than 700,000 movies and TV episodes, grouped by topic and genre across those apps. If you have a single service and watch whatever it recommends, there is little here that you don't already get from that service's own app.

It also suits viewers who split their time between a phone, a tablet and a television. You can watch on a laptop, an Android phone or tablet, or a TV running Google TV, and your Watchlist follows you between them. Someone who mostly watches on one screen will get less out of that, but for a household where one person queues things up and another watches later, it is the useful part.

The phone remote is a smaller draw aimed at a specific annoyance: a lost or buried television remote. The app includes a remote of its own for Android TV OS devices, and it lets you type passwords, titles and search terms with your phone's keyboard instead of hunting letters on screen. That is a convenience for people who own a Google TV or other Android TV OS device, and irrelevant to everyone else.

Finding a title without opening every app

The discovery side is the core of the app. Titles from your various services are gathered in one place and grouped by topic and genre, so browsing doesn't mean hopping between apps. Recommendations are based on what you watch and on what is trending across the services you can already access, and you can add thumbs up or down to steer them toward your taste.

Search is the feature I'd lean on most. Searching a title tells you which streaming apps offer it, which turns a vague memory into a decision in one step. That is the sort of thing that saves a few minutes every evening rather than changing how you watch, and it is the reason to keep the app installed even if you never buy anything from it.

The Watchlist handles the other half of the problem: the things you hear about and don't want to watch yet. You add a show or movie and come back to it later, and the list is shared across your devices. You can also add to it from a television or phone and from a laptop through Search in any browser, so a recommendation that arrives when you're away from the couch doesn't get lost.

Buying, renting and watching offline

The Shop tab is where the app stops being a directory and becomes a store. New movies and shows can be bought or rented there, and anything you purchase lands in your Library rather than disappearing into a service you might cancel. Purchased titles can be downloaded so you can watch them when you aren't connected, which matters on flights and in places with unreliable signal.

This is the part of Google TV that overlaps with a dedicated digital storefront, and it is worth deciding whether you want another place to buy films. If you already buy everything through one service, the shop here is optional. If you like owning a few things outright and watching them offline, the Library and download behavior are the practical reasons to use it.

Note that some services and some content need their own subscription, per the developer. Google TV organizes and points you toward shows; it doesn't fold those services into its own catalog. It also notes that Pantaya is available only in the US.

What you pay, and what the free download includes

Google TV itself is free to download and there are no ads in it, which is unusual for a browsing app of this scale. It does offer in-app purchases, which is how the Shop tab works: buying or renting a title is a transaction inside the app.

The larger cost sits outside the app. The streaming services whose catalogs you're browsing are billed separately, and the developer is explicit that certain services and certain content need their own subscriptions. If you're weighing whether Google TV is expensive, the honest framing is that the app is free and the content almost certainly isn't.

The app has been around since June 2011 and reaches an enormous audience, with more than 10 billion installs and a 3.9 average from roughly 2.9 million ratings.

How it compares with the alternatives

The closest comparison is the app for whichever streaming service you use most. Those apps know their own catalog well and will surface their own new releases, which suits viewers who already know which service carries what they want. That is the gap Google TV fills, and it is why it works best alongside those apps rather than instead of them.

A dedicated digital storefront is the other alternative, if buying and renting films is what you care about. A store built around purchases is likely to be more focused on that single job, while Google TV spreads its attention across discovery, watchlists and the phone remote. Neither approach is wrong; they just prioritize differently.

There is also the television's own interface to consider. If you own a Google TV or another Android TV OS device, much of what this app does is already present on the big screen, and the phone version is mainly a companion for searching, queuing and typing. On a phone or tablet without that hardware, the app stands on its own as a browsing and shopping tool.

A sensible hub if you already pay for several services

Searching a title to see which app carries it, keeping a shared Watchlist, and being able to buy or rent the occasional film and download it for offline viewing covers the everyday gaps well. The phone remote is a bonus for anyone with an Android TV OS device in the house.

If you watch from a single service, or you already have a storefront you're happy with, the app adds a layer without adding much. It is free, so trying it costs nothing but a little setup, and the parts that matter are the ones you'd use weekly: search, the Watchlist and the Library. Install it if the question "which app is that on?" comes up often in your household.

What's new

Find where your favorite shows and movies are streaming * Discover something new in just a few taps * Add thumbs up or down to get personal recommendations based on what you like to watch * See which streaming apps offer the show or movie you want to watch