Google announced the Chromecast yesterday. The Chromecast is a $35 dongle that will allow the user to wirelessly stream audio and video from their smartphone, tablet or laptop to their HDTV. This setup certainly looks like it has its advantages. One being the ease of use, but that aside, this announcement did cause some to worry about the future of another Google product — Google TV.
Well, in an update coming by way of the Google TV Developer Google+ page, the release of the Chromecast dongle will not be the death of the Google TV. In fact, it was said that they believe there is “ample room for both products to exist and succeed.” Aside from the confirmation that Google TV isn’t going away, there was not much else in the way of specifics.
The posting went on to talk about how “partners are continuing to launch new Google TV-enabled HDTVs and boxes.” From here they referred back to Google I/O when they talked about how the are still “working with partners to bring the latest experience of Android and Chrome to devices later this year.”
Basically, Google TV and Chromecast will remain individual products and be available side by side. That being said, the Chromecast dongle may be a good solution for those looking for a quick and easy way to stream Netflix, but there are still some advantages to having a full Google TV setup.
The first with that is a much fuller Android experience. Google TV also has more available content, the ability to search across source and integrates a bit better with your existing setup. The other question with Chromecast is which apps will be supported moving forward. Items such as Netflix, YouTube and Chrome are a good start, but we are hoping to see others such as Plex come available.
SOURCE: Google+ (Google TV Developers)
I’m still waiting to see what Google does with their SageTV acquisition and how that fits into their TV plans.
“there is “ample room for both products to exist and succeed.””
Well, physically, I’m actually running out of room. I’ll soon have both and I’m wondering how to use my HDMI ports (2) now.
I was thinking that maybe this is their much better and more affordable second coming of the Nexus Q. It has essentially the same functions and just seems to work.