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Chronicles

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Why Chromecast is such a big deal for Google, and a threat to Apple

Google officially launched its next big idea for the living room Wednesday, and the cast of people presenting the new product dubbed Chromecast at the company's breakfast event in San Francisco looked awfully familiar …

GigaOM Janko Roettgers

Context & Ripple Effects

Google used Wednesday's San Francisco breakfast event to turn its living-room ambitions into a product line: alongside a refreshed Nexus 7 arriving July 30th at $230 and Android 4.3, it unveiled Chromecast, a $35 HDMI stick that streams web video to any TV. The same-day breadth of the announcement mattered — the tablet refresh gave the event consumer pull, while Chromecast was pitched as the strategic play.

The pickup was unusually wide even by launch-day standards: Google's own blog, Engadget, Wired, CNET, TechCrunch, AllThingsD and Gizmodo all carried it within hours, and TechCrunch's report flagged that the Google Cast SDK ships for iOS, Android and Chrome — meaning Google's streaming protocol deliberately runs on Apple hardware. AllThingsD framed the competitive angle bluntly, asking who wouldn't like web TV arriving on the television.

First-order effects

  • Apple's AirPlay now faces a $35 rival whose SDK targets iOS devices as well as Android and Chrome, so iPhone and iPad owners can drive Google's dongle rather than needing an Apple TV.
  • Developers building second-screen apps get one casting API spanning all three platforms immediately, making Chromecast support a checkbox decision rather than a platform bet.

Second-order effects

  • Because the Cast SDK accepts iOS clients, Apple's living-room strategy loses the guarantee that its own devices route users to its own box — the lock-in moves from the device to whoever controls the protocol.
  • Streaming-stick pricing gets a new floor at $35, pressuring set-top rivals like Roku and Apple TV to justify boxes costing several times more for similar app access.

Third-order effects

  • If the pattern holds, the living-room control point shifts from the box under the TV to the casting protocol and its SDK — Google monetizing cheap hardware as a distribution channel into every screen, regardless of whose logo is on the phone driving it.

The trend: Living-room streaming is moving from proprietary boxes toward cheap dongles governed by cross-platform protocols, letting Google reach TVs through Apple's own devices.

Related: Chromecast · Apple · Google · Chromecast vs. AirPlay: how do they compare? · Review of Google's New Chromecast

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