Your Google TV or Android TV may not get an update until Android 16… in 2026

Google is reportedly skipping Android 15 for TVs

· TechRadar

News By Carrie Marshall published 13 November 2024

(Image credit: Google)
  • Android TV and Google TV may be moving to a biannual update cycle
  • TV OSes don't need upgraded as frequently as phone OSes do
  • Changes won't affect bug fixing or security updates

As we reported a few days ago, Google is making some changes to the hardware requirements for Google TV. But it's also making another big change, and that could mean a much longer gap between TV software updates in the future.

Google is reportedly moving to a two-year update schedule for Android TV and Google TV. We've seen that happen already, with Google skipping Android 13 for TV devices and moving from Android 12 to Android 14 instead. And now, Android Authority says that Android 15 is going to be skipped too.

What's happening with Google TV and Android TV updates?

According to Android Authority's source, Google privately announced a change to its software release plans at this year's Android TV partner conference. The change means that instead of offering an Android 15 update to Google TV and Android TV sets, Google plans to sit that one out and wait for Android 16 instead.

Android Authority has contacted Google to corroborate the story, but Google says that it has "nothing to share" right now.

The reason for the change seems simple enough: Android is a smartphone-driven operating system, and that means it's on a very intense upgrade schedule to meet the needs and demands of smartphone manufacturers and smartphone users. TV isn't anywhere near as fast-moving, and there's much less of a need for TVs to get operating system updates. And the version of Android for TVs is based on the Android Open Source Project, which tends not to have quite as many gee-whiz new features as Google's own Android.

What does that mean for you? Provided Google stays on top of bug fixes and security updates it shouldn't make much difference; as with other releases in the past, most of the new features arriving in Android 15 are for phones, not TVs. And there may be an upside: better to have a slightly older but solid TV OS with its bugs fixed and its security issues squashed than to have a newer OS that introduces new things to fix.

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