VCLEVER BLOG

Posted on July 29, 2013 at 12:16 pm by Andrew Arnott

Google recently unveiled Chromecast, which looks like it could really shake up the internet TV market or even the wider TV broadcasting market

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmpOis2UEJg

Chromecast is a little dongle with an associated app that will wirelessly stream media from phones, tablets and PCs to any TV with an HDMI port. That means you can watch Netflix or YouTube videos on your TV while controlling the action with your phone/tablet/PC (and you can even switch between different devices midway through). All for $35 too. Looks great to us and such a better direction than Google TV.

We wrote about Google TV here on our blog 3 years ago and it’s interesting looking back at our opinions then and what has transpired since (particularly the failure of Google TV to take off). Not to blow our own trumpets too much, but we even pretty much described the Chromecast concept when talking about the direction we felt things should be going (we were talking about how phones and tablets should be at the core of the experience):

…Where the TV should come into play is that if you do want to share something from your own device or just watch it yourself on a big screen, it should be as simple as waving a remote.

That’s the direction Chromecast takes – you use your individual device, be it a smartphone or tablet, and use it to pop content onto your big screen (rather than faffing around with a cumbersome interface on your TV). The beauty of Chromecast is in both its simplicity and its cross-platform compatibility. It’s not just made for Google’s own Android operating system, but will also work with iOS devices (i.e. iPhones and iPads) so you could start a film using your Android smartphone and adjust the volume with your iPad.

Unlike Google TV, we think Chromecast will be hugely successful and although it’s currently limited in its content (you’re mainly limited to Google Play, Youtube and Netflix right now), it makes sense for other content providers to jump onboard and we reckon they will.

We just need to wait for it to make its way across the Atlantic to our shores. If it’s available in the UK for anything like its $35 US price tag, we’ll definitely be rushing out and buying one (metaphorically of course, as we’ll be buying online).