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The Chromecast would be a pretty great device with a few hundred third-party apps, including streaming radio, a photo viewer, and other stuff that could be easi

by ekidd 13y ago

The Chromecast would be a pretty great device with a few hundred third-party apps, including streaming radio, a photo viewer, and other stuff that could be easily implemented on top of the existing SDK. And I was planning on writing a specialty app at some point. I have a whitelisted device and I've been fooling around with the SDK. It's a nice platform. But there's several comments in the Koushik Dutta thread from people who "spoke to Googlers" suggesting that Google intends to keep very tight control over the platform and only allow major media companies to ship apps. If this is the case, the Chromecast is a pretty worthless competitor to the average, proprietary smart TV, which already does Netflix, Hulu, etc., and doesn't require the customer to use multiple devices to turn on the TV and play content. As somebody who once spent a couple months of evenings hacking on Google Wave bots, I'm ready to drop my Chromecast plans like a hot potato. If there isn't a robust market for third-party apps, this thing's going to be another stinker.

magicalist 13y ago
> But there's several comments in the Koushik Dutta thread from people who "spoke to Googlers" To be fair, I only see the one comment mentioning that and it's by Koushik Dutta himself, so I don't think that really says anything beyond what's in the initial post. In fact, there is a googler in there asking for patience, though it doesn't appear that he actually works on chromecast. On the side of patience, it doesn't make much sense to make an SDK and tell people about it if making apps is going to be more or less invitation only. And it would be pretty weird to allow arbitrary browser tab broadcasting but not arbitrary app broadcasting, since it's media that's (ridiculously) licensed to be played in a browser but not on a TV that made all the media companies go apoplectic with google TV in the first place. All that said, I agree that cat and mouse games with potential device hackers is super lame and makes it not that much more valuable than an hdmi cord. On the one hand, it's (sort of) wireless hdmi, on the other, it only works with a tiny list of whitelisted apps! Not exactly a glowing advertising slogan.
Pxtl 13y ago
Yup. Android/Google fanboys already have Android HDMI sticks to get their Google + TV fix - little Chinese no-names like Smallart are actually making some very nice devices. Chromecast is Google's answer to Apple TV, not iTV. It's just the latest iteration of GoogleTV and will do just as well. I'm happily waiting for my Android stick to come in the mail for my kids' TV.
- superuser2 13y ago
  You can stream your Mac's screen with a VLC video playing full-screen and effectively watch whatever you want on an Apple TV.

by ekidd 13y ago

magicalist 13y ago

> But there's several comments in the Koushik Dutta thread from people who "spoke to Googlers" To be fair, I only see the one comment mentioning that and it's by Koushik Dutta himself, so I don't think that really says anything beyond what's in the initial post. In fact, there is a googler in there asking for patience, though it doesn't appear that he actually works on chromecast. On the side of patience, it doesn't make much sense to make an SDK and tell people about it if making apps is going to be more or less invitation only. And it would be pretty weird to allow arbitrary browser tab broadcasting but not arbitrary app broadcasting, since it's media that's (ridiculously) licensed to be played in a browser but not on a TV that made all the media companies go apoplectic with google TV in the first place. All that said, I agree that cat and mouse games with potential device hackers is super lame and makes it not that much more valuable than an hdmi cord. On the one hand, it's (sort of) wireless hdmi, on the other, it only works with a tiny list of whitelisted apps! Not exactly a glowing advertising slogan.

Pxtl 13y ago

Yup. Android/Google fanboys already have Android HDMI sticks to get their Google + TV fix - little Chinese no-names like Smallart are actually making some very nice devices. Chromecast is Google's answer to Apple TV, not iTV. It's just the latest iteration of GoogleTV and will do just as well. I'm happily waiting for my Android stick to come in the mail for my kids' TV.

superuser2 13y ago
You can stream your Mac's screen with a VLC video playing full-screen and effectively watch whatever you want on an Apple TV.