YouTube Updates TV App

YouTube is updating its TV app to better address the multiple capabilities of the platform. Not all TV based apps have been updated as we looked quickly at Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV we found Apple TV still had an older version of the YouTube app. Understand we are not talking about “YouTube TV” the cable replacement, just the good old video sharing app.

All that being said the new app does a lot to pull in the various categories offered within YouTube that in some cases were buried behind the vast choices and videos available.

Signing in to the YouTube app still allows users to see recommendations from the creators the user if following. This is all found in a home section. Next down is a music section with multiple Vevo categories broken down by genre as well as the musical tastes and past searches of the user.

A Gaming section  is populated with quick links to YouTube gamers that can be followed as they live stream, gaming topic rows and again rows of videos based on gaming based creators that a user follows.

The News tab breaks things down based on local, Sports, World news, Technology news, National news and top headlines.

Finally the Movies and TV shows section offers up movies and TV shows that can either be seen for free or rented PPV style.

The overall effect of the new app is that it gives it more of a central media center type feel than a passive crab bag of videos from across the map. And don’t worry user created playlists, subscriptions and history are all still available so anybody can find that video from last night without having to remember what they searched for in the first place when they show their friends from work.

Overall the update is a big upgrade for users that improves content discovery and organization giving the app more of a starting point feel for Internet generated content than it had in the past.