> They made it dead simple to stream content from any device to your TV. So anyone can use it, particularly the older generation.
That's not really new. Apple TV lets you do the same thing with AirPlay, and it works great.
Seems like a decent device, and the fact that it works with non-Apple hardware is obviously useful for people who don't have Apple households, but I don't think it's disruptive.
> Apple TV lets you do the same thing with AirPlay, and it works great.
Not entirely. AirPlay is baked into the OS, so devs don't need to do extra work to support it. Chromecast (or, the Google Cast SDK) is built into the app level, and works in a fundamentally different way (i.e. streams from the internet and allows multi-user queueing vs. streams from the audio/video output of the device).
I don't think it's terribly disruptive - it's essentially AirPlay 2.0 - but it is new.
"Streams from the internet" isn't inherently superior. There are things about it that are nice and things about it that are not so nice.
1. it requires the dongle to have equivalent internet access as the 'controlling' device. So it would seem you'd be out of luck if you wanted to stream from a mobile device using a cell modem, to a chromecast on a display in, say, a hotel, conference room or cabin without (unfiltered) wifi access to the internet.
2. sometimes internet-streamed video, even when possible, is far inferior to just soaking some processing power from the mobile device. People who locally-save video content for performance/quality reasons aren't going to be wild about it happily ignoring that local store to pull down a choppy/compressed stream.
3. it seems to limit the stream to codecs the device supports. So one can't likely chromecast from an HTPC that's otherwise perfectly capable of streaming xvid/divx/etc.
multi-user queue-ing is nice. Airplay really should pick that up.
But I'm not at all wild about "it's own internet stream". While the pros are neat in certain situations, the cons are a deal-breaker for me.
AirPlay also lets you use the Apple TV as a second window for iOS apps. Basically, you can just create a new UIWindow and assign it to the Apple TV and then it won't mirror your app, it will just display whatever view you have on the screen. It does have some lag time though so its hard to do real time graphics on the Apple TV.
the fact that it works with non-Apple hardware is obviously useful for people who don't have Apple households
It seems it will work with both Android and iOS apps and with anything that runs the Chrome browser. That is quite a big improvement over the walled garden of Apple TV.
I'm confused about how it works with iOS apps. Does it just act like an AirPlay device? From Safari on iOS, Spotify, etc. there's the AirPlay icon that I can push to switch it to the Apple TV. Or would the apps have to add a different type of button? I didn't realize until now that Chrome is available for iOS. Would you have to switch to that for streaming web videos?
Apps which want to support this would add a 'stream to chromecast' button which would use the Chromecast android/iOS API. (https://developers.google.com/cast/)
It seems to not be possible to stream the web browser from a mobile for now - all the mobile apps in the demo (netflix, google video, youtube) triggered a video download straight to the dongle from the internet, with the mobile effectively being used just as a remote. That's the primary use case. The 'stream a web page a browserdirectly from your computer' bit is still in beta and, AFAICS, currently only works with chrome on Windows/MacOS/chromeOS.
But it's possible it'll be added in future to chrome for iOS/android, and if it is: yes, you'll need to use chrome, the chances of Apple supporting chromecast in safari are... slim.
> Apple TV lets you do the same thing with AirPlay, and it works great.
With Apple-devices only. The majority of the market has non-Apple devices. And that's across a range of product-classes: Desktops, Laptops and mobile devices.
To be able to take advantage of AirPlay you need to be all in all across all those classes. That brings the effective market-share which can use AirPlay (in developed countries) down from around 20% to much less than 5%. In less developed countries, AirPlay is dead code.
This will be a device people can actually use. Do you seriously not consider that a factor in being disruptive?
If Microsoft developed the first tablets but Apple perfected it into a disruptive device, couldn't the same hold true for an Airplay to Chromecast corollary?
The NEW disruptive aspects of the new device are the price point, the collaborative playlist aggregation, and the open ecosystem. Airplay was the first to the table in ease of push technology but existing in its own vertical market prevented it from a more widespread adoption.
We'll be looking back on the Chromecast as the device that helped redefine how we addressed the media center form factor.
That's not really new. Apple TV lets you do the same thing with AirPlay, and it works great.
Seems like a decent device, and the fact that it works with non-Apple hardware is obviously useful for people who don't have Apple households, but I don't think it's disruptive.