Google Removes its Play Movies and TV App From Every Roku and Most Smart TVs

Google will be killing off yet another app, despite Play Music & TV been renamed on the best Android phones last year to Google TV, it made the announcement through 9to5Google that Google Play Movies and TV app will no longer be available on a Roku set-top box or a Samsung, LG, Vizio or Roku smart TV from July 15 this year and this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone because of Google’s well-known reputation for making changes to its apps and services all the time.

Some apps get discontinued or replaced with newer and fresher ones, while the luckier ones are getting upgraded and put on even more platforms, like in the case of Google Play Movies & TV, these apps went through a lot of changes recently and the most recent one involves specific platforms like smart TVs and Roku. So the company quietly updated the app’s support page to reflect an important new change: Google Play Movies & TV will no longer be available on Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TVs. On top of that, Roku users won’t be able to use the app either starting June 15.

So if you’d bought or rented movies or TV shows through the service, the good part is that you can still access them from the ‘Your Movies & Shows’ section of the YouTube app on those devices. Though this change is likely going to also affect you if you’ve used the Movies and TV app to access Movies Anywhere, the service that allows you to redeem codes from DVDs and Blu-rays so that you can access your media digitally.

Google has confirmed that users who relied on Play Films and TV to access that content can do so through YouTube. The good news is those using any of the devices mentioned will still be able to access all the features typically provided by the standalone Google Play Movies & TV app. However, instead of opening the soon to be demised Play Movies & TV app, they will just have to log in with their Google account in the YouTube app to access all their past purchases, as well as browse, purchase, and rent new content.

It’s also crucial to add that though while Play Family Library purchases will be shown in the YouTube app, purchases made on YouTube won’t support family sharing. On the other hand, all purchases made from Google Play Movies & TV website or app will continue to support family sharing.