Several users recently took to Reddit to reveal that they have received a “SHIELD Experience 9.0” update based on Android 11 for Android TV. The reports were swiftly deleted from the platform, suggesting that it was a closed beta and that users who had received the update were supposed to keep it confidential. Some users even admitted that they had opted in on the closed beta program, confirming the speculations. Nonetheless, the folks over at Android Police could uncover some details before the Reddit posts were taken down, or perhaps through cached versions of some of the posts. The new update still doesn’t bring any noticeable changes to NVIDIA’s SHIELD Experience. Well, that’s to be expected as Android TV hasn’t seen any major visual overhauls in recent years. As the report notes, changes have been mainly “under the hood”. The newer, Google TV redesign is where the company has focused on visual upgrades. That’s the very reason why NVIDIA didn’t push the Android 10 for Android TV update to its SHIELD TV lineup. “The effort was large and there was essentially no impact to end-users,” the company explained. As such, it preferred to keep its devices on Android TV 9. But NVIDIA is now seemingly all set to push the Android 11 update to its SHIELD TV devices.
Android 11 for Android TV does pack some goodies
While this update may not overly change the UI on your SHIELD TV, Android 11 for Android TV does bring some notable new features. We have native support for the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller as well as USB support for the Steam Controller. Google TV’s Auto Low Latency Mode is also coming to compatible TVs running the Android TV platform. Features like one-time permissions and other performance improvements, including better support for hardware features such as system LEDs and microphones, are also part of the package. We still don’t have an exact timeframe as to when the Android 11 update might arrive in the stable channel to SHIELD TV users across the world. The closed beta program seems to have kicked off in recent weeks. So we might have to wait for some time before the update goes public. We will surely let you know once NVIDIA begins the rollout.
