Exclusive: Google updating Chromecast app w/ ‘What’s On,’ suggested apps, more

As we told you yesterday, Google is preparing several big Chromecast announcements for its September event later this month. According to the internal documents that 9to5Google has obtained, the company is planning to launch not only brand new Chromecast hardware and Spotify support, but an updated companion app for the streaming device as well. The new app seems to build on the previous, packing suggested content features, a new design, and more…

Based on the documents we’ve obtained, the app has at least a few notable additions over the current version (which is definitely very bare-bones in terms of features). First, there appears to be a section referred to as “What’s On,” which allows you to browse content offered through various Chromecast-supported apps. At least based on the screenshots and documents we’ve seen, the app will show you different movies, videos, and other content from within the apps you have installed on your device.

On top of suggesting actual content, the app also seems to have a screen that shows you which Chromecast apps you have installed and suggests Chromecast-supported apps available on the Play Store. The current version of the app also has a “Discover apps,” tab, but it redirects to a page within the Play Store app. The new app seems to serve as more of an intelligent hub to all the Chromecast-castable content found within your apps.

Finally, as you can tell in the admittedly blurry images to the right, the app is getting a new user interface. While it might still have the sidebar found in the current version, there also seems to be a section with tabbed navigation like that which can be found in the Play Store app.

According to the documents we’ve seen, this new app, alongside the new Chromecast hardware, will be made official at Google’s rumored September 29th event. That event will also see the introduction of Spotify support for the Chromecast, and is rumored to be the day Google will unveil the upcoming generation of Nexus smartphones — one from LG, and another from Huawei — as well.

Tom Maxwell contributed to this report.