LG replaces minimalistic bar in webOS 6.0 with a completely filling home screen
LG has introduced webOS 6.0, the television platform that its TVs this year will run on. The signature minimalist bar with tiles at the bottom is exchanged for a completely filling home screen. LG also comes with a new Magic Remote.
LG says webOS 6.0 will be present on its OLED TVs, QNED mini LED TVs, NanoCell models and 2021 UHD smart TVs. The most important change concerns the introduction of a full-filling home screen. The characteristic bar with tiles for the different apps that could be called up as a minimalist overlay while other content was still visible, disappears.
The manufacturer says that the new home screen is responding to changing consumer habits. According to LG, the new screen gives quick access to the most frequently used apps and also makes it easier to discover new content faster, making recommendations based on the user’s preferences and their viewing history.
The new home screen shows that a fairly large tile is reserved at the top left for advertising. It is unknown whether this can be disabled by the user. There are also tiles for searches, weather and a fairly large bar of rectangular tiles that provide recommendations in the form of images. At the very bottom is another bar with white tiles for the display of the various apps, although these tiles are now square. The interface continues even further down, which initially falls just outside the screen and therefore requires scrolling. Users can probably make settings for the dashboard there, among other things.
LG also comes with a new Magic Remote. The supplied remote control still has the function of detecting movement with which you can operate a pointing arrow on the screen. The design has been modified, voice assistance through Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant is supported and there are sponsored buttons for quick access to Amazon’s Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+. There are not too many buttons present. For example, there is no specific play-pause button, although it was previously missing on certain models, such as the Magic Remote with the C7 OLED TV from 2017. The new remote control supports NFC, so that users can simply touch a smartphone with NFC. share content from their phone with the television and vice versa.
By the way, webOS ThinQ AI, the version of the operating system that is present on LG’s OLED televisions from last year, for example, already had an extra row of shortcuts with recommendations for Netflix and YouTube and there were already recently viewed TV channels. Below that was the characteristic bar with slanting ’tiles’, where the various apps are displayed. At the bottom left, a tile was also shown for displaying advertising, although this can be turned off in the settings.
Impression of what webOS ThinQ AI looks like on last year’s televisions.