Android By Russell Holly Dec. 2, 2013 2:29 pm
Despite a promising start to Google’s Chromecast developer program, many who had originally decided to support the platform have moved on. One developer in particular, after having his app banned by Google for bypassing their arbitrary whitelist, has turned a negative into a positive with an all new local content streaming app called AllCast.
Koushik Dutta is not exactly a stranger to the concept of butting heads with Google. His work with the ClockworkMod recovery replacement, Desktop SMS sync service, data backup and restore across Android devices, and of course Cyanogen Inc. has created multiple scenarios that involved private chats about his behavior.
The Chromecast dongle showed promise as a local video streaming service as well as a premium content receiver, but it became clear very early on that Google had no intention of allowing this feature to happen. After Koush’s app was blacklisted, he began looking at other streaming services to see what was possible and where. The end result is AllCast, and it’s now available for anyone to check out.
Instead of supporting a single device, which was never really the plan to begin with, AllCast supports just about anything that can receive a stream. If you’ve got an Xbox, a Roku, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV, and just about everything in between, AllCast will allow you to stream local content from your Android phone or tablet with the same basic setup as Chromecast. What’s even more impressive is the inclusion of cloud storage lockers like Dropbox and Google Drive as sources for streaming content. You just choose AllCast as the share target in Android, and it asks you to select the device you’re sending to. The next step feels exactly like the Chromecast, where the content is received and plays automatically.
AllCast is currently in beta, but it’s very simple to join and try it out. The Google+ community for AllCast allows you to sign up to be a tester for the app, and once you agree to try it out you’re taken to the Google Play Store to install on whatever device you want. The AllCast community itself is there for feedback, and if his Google+ page is any indicator it looks like Koush is spending whatever precious time he has away from Cyanogen Inc on this project, so expect regular updates.
This is exactly the sort of rich developer interaction that Google is missing on the Chromecast due to their decision to cater to the premium services first. Google has allowed specific services to trickle in over the last two months, adding support for Hulu Plus, Pandora, and HBO GO on their own schedule, but nothing so far from the hundreds of developers that signed up initially to add Chromecast support into their own apps. Who knows, maybe those developers will start adding AllCast support instead.
Now read: HTC and LG follow Motorola with Android 4.4 updates
More...
Koushik Dutta is not exactly a stranger to the concept of butting heads with Google. His work with the ClockworkMod recovery replacement, Desktop SMS sync service, data backup and restore across Android devices, and of course Cyanogen Inc. has created multiple scenarios that involved private chats about his behavior.
The Chromecast dongle showed promise as a local video streaming service as well as a premium content receiver, but it became clear very early on that Google had no intention of allowing this feature to happen. After Koush’s app was blacklisted, he began looking at other streaming services to see what was possible and where. The end result is AllCast, and it’s now available for anyone to check out.
Instead of supporting a single device, which was never really the plan to begin with, AllCast supports just about anything that can receive a stream. If you’ve got an Xbox, a Roku, Apple TV, Samsung Smart TV, and just about everything in between, AllCast will allow you to stream local content from your Android phone or tablet with the same basic setup as Chromecast. What’s even more impressive is the inclusion of cloud storage lockers like Dropbox and Google Drive as sources for streaming content. You just choose AllCast as the share target in Android, and it asks you to select the device you’re sending to. The next step feels exactly like the Chromecast, where the content is received and plays automatically.
AllCast is currently in beta, but it’s very simple to join and try it out. The Google+ community for AllCast allows you to sign up to be a tester for the app, and once you agree to try it out you’re taken to the Google Play Store to install on whatever device you want. The AllCast community itself is there for feedback, and if his Google+ page is any indicator it looks like Koush is spending whatever precious time he has away from Cyanogen Inc on this project, so expect regular updates.
This is exactly the sort of rich developer interaction that Google is missing on the Chromecast due to their decision to cater to the premium services first. Google has allowed specific services to trickle in over the last two months, adding support for Hulu Plus, Pandora, and HBO GO on their own schedule, but nothing so far from the hundreds of developers that signed up initially to add Chromecast support into their own apps. Who knows, maybe those developers will start adding AllCast support instead.
Now read: HTC and LG follow Motorola with Android 4.4 updates
More...
