Roku OS 11 will bring more customization, new Photo Streams, and more

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Roku Ultra 2
Roku Ultra 2 (Image credit: Roku)

What you need to know

  • Roku has announced a new software update coming soon.
  • Roku OS 11 will roll out to users over the next few weeks.
  • A slew of new features is included in Roku OS 11.

Roku has announced that it will release its new Roku OS 11 update "over the coming weeks," an update that will bring new customization options as well as Photo Streams — a feature that will allow people to share photos and have them appear as wallpapers.

Roku and while it might not be available to everyone immediately, there is plenty to look forward to. At the top of that list is the new Photo Streams, a feature that will allow people to create their own screensavers using images they took. Everything will be sharable as well, so friends and family can get images from each other and make truly unique screensavers from them.

Roku Photo Streams enables users to customize their Roku experience by creating a personalized screensaver using their own photos. To do so, users can simply upload images directly to their Roku devices through their desktop or mobile phone and set them as screensavers, turning the biggest screen in the home into a digital photo frame. Want to also share photos with friends and family across the country? Users can easily upload and share Streams with other Roku users so they will appear on their Roku devices as well. Once a Stream is shared, friends and family can also add their photos to the Stream, creating a shared album.

Other improvements include new automatic speech clarity and sound modes that will make it easier for people to hear what is being said on-screen, vital for those hard-to-hear sections of quiet movies, for example. Roku is also putting more live content on the Home Screen Menu, giving people easy access to streaming video.

In January, we added a Live TV Zone on the Home Screen Menu giving users easy access to free live and linear content from The Roku Channel as well as cable alternatives, including Hulu, fuboTV, Philo, Sling, and YouTube TV, to name a few. With Roku OS 11, you will be able to see your recently watched Live TV content and discover the latest in local and national news, sports, movies, and more in the Live TV section now located on the Home Screen Menu.

Other improvements include a new voice-enabled keyboard and more. Roku users can learn the ins and outs via the company's press release.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.