Google TV’s new free streaming app has been removed, and it won’t be back right away
Now you see it, now you don’t: Google TV’s updated Freeplay app only just rolled out, and now it’s rolled back in again
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What’s got aGoogleTV and can’t access the Freeplay app any more? The answer, it seems, is everybody.
Freeplay– not to be confused with the UK’sFreeview Play– is Google’s free TV app for US users, delivering FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) channels. The latest version of the Freeplay app began rolling out in September, but as9to5Googlespotted last week it had disappeared from some users' TVs.
It turns out that the issue isn’t an isolated one; Google is temporarily pulling the app for almost all users.
Where has the Freeplay app gone?
In a statement to 9to5Google, Google explained that it was recalling the app from all “affected devices” because of a crashing issue; the Google TV Streamer doesn’t appear to be one of the affected devices but Google TVs are.
Google says:
While rolling out the new Google TV Freeplay guide, we discovered an issue that can increase crashes for some users. We have disabled access to the new guide on affected devices until the fix is in place. The fix will begin rolling out soon, and the updated guide will be available for all Google TV devices in the coming months.
By “all Google TV devices” Google means US ones; there are no plans as yet to make Freeplay available outside the US.
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Pulling the app is disappointing, because it’s really rather good. But if the crashing is serious and frequent enough to make Google pull the app altogether it’s clearly more serious than the odd system hang. And you still have access to your free channels, so at least you’re not losing those too.
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir,Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock bandUnquiet Mind.
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