Sling TV is good at many things. It's cheap, first and foremost, and fairly versatile, too, thanks to $5 content packs that allow you to pay only for the content you're actually going to watch.
It's available on a plethora of platforms - now including Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, but one aspect that hasn't always been rock-solid, however, is its overly simplistic interface that hides on-demand content and looks, for the most part, like a linear channel guide.
But that's an area that Sling TV's developer, DISH, has been hard at work at over the last few months.
To that end the company has unveiled a second-generation GUI that will launch on most platforms sooner rather than later.
MYTV, not YOURTV
The big focal point of Sling TV 2.0 is the MyTV menu that highlights your favorite shows, as well as content you may have started to watch but didn't have a chance to finish.
In a recent demo of the software in San Francisco, a spokesperson said that there are plans to integrate a "most popular" option similar to the Xbox One's trending bar of the OneGuide and use your viewing history to recommend content you might like but haven't heard about.
Continuing on the trend of keeping content within thumbs' reach, the new interface will sort live content into appropriate genres like "sports," "news" and "movies." You'll not only be able to see content from the channels you already subscribe to, but will also see other content in those genres from content packages you don't already subscribe to.
The same spokesperson said that Sling TV will start becoming context and time aware, promoting news programs in the morning if you like headlines with your cup of coffee, kids shows in the middle of the day while little ones occupy the living room and movies at night when you kick back with a bowl of popcorn.
DISH says to expect the update to roll out over-the-air by the end of the first quarter of 2016, starting with Roku and Amazon products and eventually making its way to the rest of the platforms later in the year.
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