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Google Cast for audio is an AirPlay competitor for music streaming from Android, iOS & web

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q0yZomXuSw

Google today announced Google Cast for audio, which the company says takes advantage of Chromecast tech to send audio to third-party hardware like speakers, A/V receivers, and sound bars. The feature will allow users to tap a “cast” button from within music and radio apps on Android, iOS and the web to stream audio to Google Cast enabled speakers.

Google announced support for a number of music services that will work with the new Google Cast for audio feature including Deezer, Google Play Music, iHeartRadio, NPR One, Pandora, Rdio, and TuneIn. Google has a full list here.

As for hardware, Google said the first speakers to support Google Cast for audio will be available from LG, HEOS by Denon, Sony and others this spring in the US.

While Google’s Chromecast opened up video streaming options to the big screen with features that rival Apple’s popular AirPlay streaming features for iOS devices and Macs, Google Cast for audio is another piece to that puzzle that competes with the similar AirPlay audio enabled speakers available on the market.

In addition, alongside the announcement Google noted that the Chromecast is now available in 27 countries with more coming this year.

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Comments

  1. They didn’t have it before? I’m surprised. Now it can be like their stup*d welcome to… graphics.

  2. coolfactor - 9 years ago

    Chrome cast would stream from the internet over a wifi connection. Google cast streams device-to-device. Same tech/protocol used in a new way, if I’m understanding correctly?

    This casts a serious shadow over Apple’s AirPlay. Increasingly, it’s showing just how closed Apple’s approach is to their tech. Competitors are delivering interoperability in a far broader sense.

    • hmurchison - 9 years ago

      The ability to stream audio to a device has been done for years\ (Airplay, Bluetooth, Miracast). Google is simply late to the party.

      Device to Device Airplay has been attempted by Rogue Amoeba and more but the demand for this is low because on iOS accessing music via iTunes Home Sharing, iTunes match is easy. If you have non Apple devices Amazon, Google and more stream from the cloud.

      Protocols like this need to be rich. Airplay doesn’t just stream audio/video and display it also encapsulates track metadata, artwork and more. Sonos has the best audio sync in the business.

      So if a player wants to get into this game with a product that’s superior it’s going to need rich metadata handling, phase accurate sync and support for many media types.

      Most households are aligning on platforms OSX/iOS, Chrome/Android, Windows/Win Mobile.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.