Google TV gets an updated YouTube app

Google teased us the other day with an announcement on their Google TV Facebook page, indicating that they had some “big announcement” to make on Monday. This got everyone pretty excited, as nobody really knew what to expect. Some hoped for a possible launch of a Google Nexus TV and some new service. As it turns out, their “big” announcement tuned out to be an updated YouTube app for Google TV.

Some new nifty features

For what it’s worth, the new app can be downloaded via the Android Marketplace through the box itself. Google says, the new update has made the app faster and it’s now easier to find content. Navigation is a lot smoother now and there’s a new feature added, called Discover, which lets you browse YouTube channels by categories. The app now comes with a dedicated channels page. Here, you can navigate through playlists and videos in your channels and it also gives you the option to subscribe to channels from within the YouTube app itself. Pressing the up and down arrow on your remote gives you access to related videos and more videos from the same subscriber. This makes it a little easier to continue watching videos from the channel or user you’ve subscribed to. Once you start watching a video, you can then use the up and down arrows on the remote to bring up extra info, like rating the video and adding it to your playlist.

Not exactly the big news we were hoping for, but we’ll take what we can get. The new features should make the app more user-friendly and easier to use. If you happen to own a Google TV box, then let us know what you think of the update and if anything could still be improved.