The Google TV app, which aggregates content recommendations from numerous streaming services and lets you create a universal watchlist of your favorites, is now available on iOS. Google says that it’ll replace the previous Google Play Movies and TV app in the App Store, so if you’ve already got that installed, you should be able to update it to the Google TV experience sometime today.
The software, already available on Android, also allows you to rate what you’ve previously viewed to improve future recommendations. More important for Android TV or Chromecast with Google TV owners is that you can use the Google TV app as a remote control for those devices by tapping the remote icon.
Not every major streaming service allows its content to be included in Google TV’s rows of aggregated recs: Netflix is the big holdout. The company bowed out of Google TV integration very shortly after the release of the 2020 Chromecast, and Google has been unable to bring Netflix back into the fold ever since.
Aside from its carousels of entertainment, the Google TV app will also contain your library of rentals and purchases from Google. (If you’ve got Movies Anywhere set up, this is another way to stream that content.) All of that is accessible from the “your stuff” tab. Google says the “highlights” tab keeps you “up to date with a personalized daily feed of news, reviews, and more about the entertainment you love.”
Google TV still ranks as among my favorite interfaces for browsing what’s available across whichever services you’re subscribed to. Recently, Google added individual user profiles to the experience, letting everyone in your home have their own personalized picks and home screen. The company has also hinted that it has fitness features in the works for its TV platform.
