Yesterday, Google pissed off a bunch of people because it blocked the Chromecast from streaming local media content. However, today, the search giant is claiming that the block wasn’t something directed by them but that it was a “mistake.” So the ability to stream your local news or TV shows are here to stay.
Here’s the gist of what happened. Aircast, the app that allows this kind of streaming to go down, was stripped of performing this mirror-like feature thanks to an update that Google rolled out to the Chromecast yesterday. This prompted the creator of the app, Koushik Dutta, to call out Google for intentionally breaking the feature (after he looked at the code).
Google then issued this statement to deny that claim, and clear the air:
We’re excited to bring more content to Chromecast and would like to support all types of apps, including those for local content. It’s still early days for the Google Cast SDK, which we just released in developer preview for early development and testing only. We expect that the SDK will continue to change before we launch out of developer preview, and want to provide a great experience for users and developers before making the SDK and additional apps more broadly available.
Regardless if Google is telling the truth or not, users get to enjoy pushing their local content from their device to their TV. In the end, that is what’s important. This little hiccup shouldn’t deter anyone from buying such a steal of a device at $35.
[via Gizmodo]