These two streaming devices are – New Chromecast & Chromecast Audio. So, keeping these facts in mind, high sales volume and home audio listening, Google today announced the next generation of the Chromecast device as well as a bespoke new one for listening to music off non-Bluetooth/smart audio devices. Available in three colours: black, neon orange and neon, the new device boasts improved wifi capabilities and a new adaptive antenna system. Google has also added a sort of prefetch technology, which it is calling “Fast Play“. No longer does it just suggest other apps that are compatible with the Chromecast, the new app wrangles any type of streaming app you have into a meta-menu of suggested watching across all available apps and services.
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Connecting to your speakers is done through your standard jack.
Search within the Chromecast app has been improved, too.
We had the chance to sit down with Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management at Google, and ask him a few of his thoughts on the future of these video-and-audio streaming devices.
There’s also a new Device tab that offers playback controls so you can play, pause, or mute at any time, no matter what’s playing.
Google on Tuesday not only announced a totally redesigned version of the $35 dongle, but a nifty update called Fast Play that will speed up Chromecasts. Music can be cast from iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet, Mac or Windows computer, or Chromebook, and apps such as Spotify and Deezer also support casting. In the US, you can now add private labels to your photos to make it easier to search for specific pics of people with things, places or other people-say, that photo of Mom at the Grand Canyon, or of your daughter with her pet bunny. This feature essentially guesses what you would like to watch and starts caching the stream in the background. Google tells us that the Yellow and red are limunade and coral, which must make traffic lights a little more poetic. Once plugged in, users will then be able to use the Chromecast app or any of the streaming music applications on Android to pump tunes into their speakers.
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Why go for an audio-only Chromecast when the fully-functional one is so cheap, right?
