Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Does Google HATE the Chromecast?!”.
Would you believe it’s 10 years since Google launched this, the Google Chromecast and they’ve practically squandered any opportunity to take the market by storm? Here’S why we think the Google Chromecast has been a missed Opportunity by Google over the last decade. I’M going to wager that many of you, like us, still take the Google Chromecast and more particularly the cast protocol for granted today, but that wasn’t the case 10 years ago, when Google first announced them, it was really hard not to be in all of Google solution. For the phone to TV streaming problem, it truly was a brilliantly simple idea of plugging a small Internet connected dongle into TV that you could control directly from your smartphone. So why was the original Chromecast such a big deal? Well, it was cheap. For starters. The 35 price tag suddenly made streaming TV and movies disposable. You didn’t need an expensive Smart TV anymore.
You could just buy a Chromecast and start streaming content directly to your TV set, and this seemingly worked Google’s dongle garnered millions of sales in Universal Acclaim for its ease of use. It quickly became one of the company’s first and biggest Hardware success stories, and that haven’t hasn’t been the case over the past few years. It must be said capitalism gon na capitalize, though, because Chromecast Triumph sparked it Deluge of similar, cheap streaming dongles that you’ll know from Roku Amazon with fi tv sticks, xiaomi boxes and thousands more on top of that Beyond physical Hardware, casting quickly surpassed Apple’s, older AirPlay protocol And slowly made its way into third-party speakers and TVs, and we went full circle from not needing a smart TV and just buying a dongle to not needing the Chromecast per se and just buying cast enabled TVs. Instead.
You’D think that the Chromecast would have taken over the market right. Well, the thing is 10 years into this story arc and despite trailblazing, the Chromecast has gone from the main character to a quasi NPC. It exists, it still sells and that’s really about it. Don’T get me wrong, it does what it’s supposed to do, but the enthusiasm for the form factor the cast protocol and any and all Visionary possibilities have truly dwindled. One of the major problems here is that casting just isn’t as consistent as it once was from websites unsupporting the function itself to janky performance and consistency issues if you’ve tried to cast something and it’s stuck or failed in you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. I’M 100 certain that I’m not alone here either as the casting experience has bugs Galore when it works, it’s still seamless and absolutely delightful to use, but sometimes your phone or computer won’t see nearby chromecasts it’ll fail to cast to them, which happens actually pretty frequently with Full screen, Android casting features for a lot of us on the team here Android Authority, or it will just disconnect right after they’ve started casting. This is one of the most frustrating issues, because the content continues playing on the receiving Chromecast or TV or speaker what it happens to be, but your Source device is no longer in control of it. And how do you stop it? Do you pause it? Do you go back change the volume in a lot of cases? You just can’t do that? That’S without mentioning countless online Chronicle problems like reboot, Loops, weak, Wi-Fi signals and funky cast notifications Beyond these technical woes. Google success with the Chromecast has also been marred by intellectual property disputes. You may remember that Sonos accused Google of using its own Tech to enhance the Chromecast, the Google nest and Google Home Smart speaker, because the multi-room playback features with these and phone based music control and it actually won that lawsuit to compound things.
On top of this, it actually appears at the very idea of the Chromecast was potentially stolen by Google, a lawsuit from touchscreen Technologies recently alleged that the unknown company met with Google in 2011, two years before the Chromecast actual physical release and shared its ideas for controlling Media playback from a server on a display via a personal Computing device, and I’m no lawyer, but that sounds a lot like the Chromecast that we know and love turns out. I wouldn’t be alone, as the jury found Google guilty. In that case too murky. Origins aside, you’d think they’re, a simple, cheap and popular product that sells Millions would benefit from unlimited development resources within a company such as Google.
But hey we’re talking about Google here. The company has a frayed history of supporting its own successes and its tendency to switch Focus mid-journing. That seems to be the case here. Over the last 10 years, the Chromecast has also had to fight multiple Channel changes on several fronts: third-party speakers and TVs with embedded Google cash receivers, came first and offered people a built-in alternative to that cheap dongle.
Why buy a separate Chromecast when your TV or speaker already had the functionality built in? Well, you tell us the Google Assistant, smart speakers also made casting less attractive by giving us the option to play anything with voice controls, no casting from your phone needed, and finally, Android TV boxes presented the option to use full apps to navigate and pick a show Or movie, or stream of your choice on one device with a remote or without needing to get a phone out of your pocket, and we all know that people love remotes as I’ve just mentioned. People like remotes, and it’s quite telling that the last two chromecasts are actually Google TV or Android TV masquerading as that branded as a Chromecast, Google basically killed the original Chromecast streaming dongle and hid the body under a Sly shifting strategy. After all, a home screen where the company can serve the ads is a million times better than the device that only really turns on to play, but media that you’ve chosen. Looking back, it’s always as if Google has tried to capitalize on the success of the Chromecast.
By supplanting it instead of improving the actual base product, which is what they should have done. You might also remember the Chromecast audio, which was a very popular product in its own right, and you think that the last few years were the perfect time to bring it back, and there was slight evidence of this elsewhere with the Resurgence of things like vinyl bookshelf Speakers and more audiophile setups, a simple device that can stream or receive high quality audio wirelessly is sorely needed for a lot of people out there. But Google left that feel to the likes of the Amazon Echo link, which is 199 on Amazon and the wien Pro 2, which is 149 online with various stores. There are really numerous examples where you could say: Google has dropped the ball over the last 10 years with its Chromecast Hardware, especially as there are a few areas which you could really take advantage of.
The cast protocol itself hasn’t seen too many improvements. In that same time – and it feels the exact same as it did back at launch today casting works, but it doesn’t feeling different from what you do back in 2013. Surely, in 10 years, one of the biggest tech companies in the world could it actually should have thought of a few ways to improve that experience? One common use case that we often hear about that. I’M sure tons of you out there itching to shout at me through the speakers, is using a Chromecast in places like hotels to get around content limit. Well when this works, I agree it’s excellent for frequent Travelers. Sadly, you have no control over things like the resolution or quality of the stream due to the network conditions in which you’re using your Chromecast, which means the device itself can always adapt to slower connections. It has been improved with the Chromecast with Google TV, but it’s still not perfect. We just think it would be amazing to see Google Implement a larger screen form factor as well, but I kind of like Samsung’s Dex mode to create a useful era of Dex desktop-like functionality.
Direct from your smartphone and it’ll be a really good use of that cast system. Reason why I was so frustrated about the downfall of this product. Is the Chromecast to help democratize access to streaming services and bring Smart TV functionality to millions of people for a low cost, especially at a time when the access was really quite expensive? Millions of sales and almost Universal Acclaim do not justify the complacency here, but it seems like that’s just what’s happened with the Chromecast over the last decade. Eventually, the dongle has become a victim of its own success, early on the Advent of third-party cast, ready, TVs and speakers mentally.
He didn’t really need Google’s Hardware to get the same, seamless streaming and remote control experience later, Google’s focus on assistant and Google TV forced a beloved dongle and its underlying protocol into a corner instead of evolving it forward. It has evolved sideways into accommodate a shifting strategy and a challenging Dynamic with more players in the game. Today, the Chromecast is just one of hundreds of dongles and boxes and Android TV, whatever it happens to be that you can buy and nothing really differentiates it from the crowd sure it’s still an okay product, but it’s just nothing: special, more powerful and cheaper Android and Google TV boxes exist on the market, while Roku, Amazon and apple have their own competitors, which have their own Sprints and weaknesses.
Just what was the future of the Chromecast look like? Well, it really is tough to say this wouldn’t be the first time that Google squandered a lead and it poses a question if the Chromecast can ever reclaim its status as a trailblazing streaming device in this landscape. Will we see a base Chromecast or a Chromecast audio? Ever again, or did the visual interface of Google TV with its potential for showing ads a big market area for Google irreversibly take over? Will the cast protocol see any improvements? The thing is, only time will tell. Hopefully, this is giving you an idea of where we see the Chromecast in its current iteration. It’S sad to see such a quality product full by the wayside.
Tell me what you think of the Chromecast down in the comment sections below. It’S always interesting to hear your thoughts. Do you think it’s still one of Google’s best products? It is an interesting one all the same, but thanks for watching and I will catch you in the next upload. .