It’s common knowledge that people want to be able to share and watch their media in the most convenient manner possible. When Google announced the Chromecast back in July, media viewing became extremely simple. Popular applications like YouTube, Netflix and Hulu+ allowed users to stream their content on their TVs from their phones, computers or tablets. The only downside to the Chromecast was that the SDK was locked down, so consumers had to wait for their favorite apps to be updated so that they could watch content on their screens.
That is where people like Koushik Dutta, the developer of AllCast, come in. Shortly after the announcement of the Chromecast, the popular app “AllCast” came to fruition. AllCast allowed consumers to cast their own pictures, videos and music to their TV all with the simple download of an app. There are two versions of AllCast, a free and paid version which is common with Koush’s apps. The free version has a viewing limit of one minute for all media, ads and splashscreens. The paid version, which is currently priced at $4.99, removes the limitations, ads and splashscreens. So far, over 100,000 people have installed AllCast to stream their media.
AllCast came to be mainly because people wanted to be able to cast their media to their TV without having to wait for their favorite apps to support Chromecast. Until recently, Chromecast’s SDK wasn’t available to developers, so it was difficult to get applications to have Chromecast support. However, now that it has been opened up to developers, we should be seeing more support from other popular applications.
In December, Dutta discovered that Chromecast might be getting ready to allow Android mirroring, but at the time the SDK was still locked down, so he wasn’t able to do anything with it. Yesterday, Dutta posted a meme on Google+ saying “What if I told you I could mirror Android to Chromecast”. Dutta didn’t post any ETAs, or any other information, for that matter. It is simply a teaser that suggests he has figured out how to mirror Android using the SDK.
If you don’t have a Chromecast already, now would be a good time to get one. They are currently priced at $35 at Best Buy and Amazon.