Chromecast support (finally) comes to Vimeo on iOS
but only on iOS Alison Peters / Tech News Today : Vimeo Adds Support For Chromecast On iOS App Christine Persaud / Digital Trends : Get your amateur video binge on: Vimeo adds Chromecast support for iOS Joseph Keller / iMore : Vimeo gains Chromecast support, bug fixes in version 5.2 Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Vimeo Finally Adds Chromecast Support Via Its iOS App Napier Lopez / The Next Web : Vimeo for iOS can now stream to your Chromecast
Context & Ripple Effects
Vimeo's iOS app gains Chromecast support in version 5.2, closing a gap that had persisted since the dongle launched — and it arrives iOS-only, leaving Android users waiting. The move lands amid a broader casting land-grab: Allcast brought cross-device streaming to iOS in January, and premium services were rushing to add the same capability.
In hindsight this update is the first step of a long arc: Vimeo kept investing in its mobile app (the 2016 redesign added discovery, picture-in-picture, and Spotlight search), then ultimately concluded that casting alone was enough to serve the living room.
First-order effects
- iPhone and iPad users can now push Vimeo videos straight to a TV via Chromecast, making the service viable for couch viewing without a native TV app.
- Google gets another marquee video service validating Chromecast at exactly the moment rivals like Allcast are competing for the same living-room slot.
Second-order effects
- Casting support quickly became table stakes across video apps — HBO Now added it to iOS and Android within months, and Facebook followed with Apple TV and Chromecast support in 2016 — pressuring any holdout service to match or lose TV-screen watch time.
- For Vimeo, leaning on Google's dongle instead of building per-platform TV apps trades engineering cost for dependence on the Chromecast installed base.
Third-order effects
- That trade proved durable: by 2023 Vimeo went further and ended support for its Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV, and Roku apps outright, calling casting the better ongoing experience — evidence that for mid-tier video services, phone-to-TV casting can fully replace native big-screen clients.
- If that pattern holds across smaller services, the smart-TV app economy consolidates around a few casting protocols controlled by Google, Apple, and Amazon rather than dozens of bespoke platform apps.
The trend: Phone-to-TV casting is evolving from a nice-to-have feature into the primary living-room distribution channel for mid-tier video services, displacing native smart-TV apps.