Chromecast, which streams video, photos and games to the TV, has hundreds of apps. Here is our pick of the best
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| Google's Chromecast supports a variety of apps and services across
iPhone, Android and Chrome on a computer, but finding good ones is hard |
Despite Google only listing
nine applications as compatible with Chromecast in the UK, there are well over 100 apps and games available across Android, iOS and Chrome that are compatible with
Google’s new streaming stick.
Most
are freely available in from the Google Play store, the Chrome store or
Apple’s App Store with some paid-for exceptions. Finding the apps can
be difficult, however, limited to a search of “Chromecast” in the
various app stores.
Here’s a selection of 11 of the best as well as how to more easily find them on Android.
BBC iPlayer
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| BBC iPlayer on Chromecast |
With the launch of the Chromecast in the UK, the BBC updated its free
iPlayer apps for Android and iOS to support broadcasting to the
Chromecast. The app allows users to pick what they want to watch from
the iPlayer on their smartphone or tablet and stream it to the
Chromecast with the portable device acting as a remote.
Google Photowall
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| Google's Photowall app for iPhone and iPad streams photos to your Chromecast. |
Photowall is Google’s brand new free app for taking photos from an
Android,
iPhone, iPad or
Chrome browser on a computer
and firing them on to the biggest screen in the house. It turns a
television into an interactive photo collage, allowing anyone connected
to the home Wi-Fi network to beam photos into the pool.
Plex
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| Plex streams your media onto your Chromecast from a connected computer. |
If you’re looking to stream video, music or photos locally to your Chromecast from a computer,
Plex is the app for you. Costing £3 for
Android and
iOS, the Plex app acts as a remote for streaming from the free Plex Media Server application running on your computer.
Plex
will stream locally stored media from your computer while automatically
pulling related information from the web, like movie and album details,
to add a bit of context to what you’re watching on the big-little
screen.
CastPad
The Chromecast has a lot of potential for being much more than a simple media streamer including turning a TV into a giant drawing pad. CastPad allows users to draw on their smartphone or tablet and have it show up live as they draw. The app is free, but an in-app purchase unlocks more drawing colours and removes ads.
Naughts and Crosses
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| Naughts and Crosses on your TV via Chromecast. |
The Chromecast can also operate as a gaming platform. The
super-simple and free TicTacToe app for Android or
iOS
allows two players to battle it out on the TV, tablets and smartphones.
Two players connect to the Chromecast from their Android devices and
the game proceeds until one player is crowned victorious.
Each
move is broadcast to all devices, including the TV providing a a simple
but effective demonstration of what’s possible with the Chromecast.
GamingCast
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| GamingCast puts four retro games on your TV. |
Going beyond Naughts and Crosses,
GamingCast for Android
puts four and counting retro games on a TV for 85p. Snake, multiplayer
Pong, Xonix and Tetrominoes are included with the promise of more games
to come, each using a smartphone as a wireless controller.
AllCast
If you are looking to stream photos or video from your Android device, AllCast does exactly that. It can beam any file your smartphone or tablet can open to the Chromecast, and unlike apps like Plex, does not require a computer to act as a server.
The app costs £3 and needs a strong Wi-Fi connection, but a free version allows the user to trial it with a one-minute time limit to make sure it works before taking the plunge.
MyCastScreen
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| MyCastScreen provides a rolling info screen on your TV when your Chromecast isn't in use. |
The Chromecast’s default screen is pretty limited when nothing is
being broadcast to the little streaming stick, simply showing a rotating
selection of photos and a clock.
MyCastScreen lets users semi-replace the default screen with a live information screen packed with time, date, local weather and traffic as well as rolling news headlines.
The
60p app is quite limited at the moment but offers quite a lot of
promise for turning the Chromecast into a rolling information screen,
while customisation and other widgets are currently in development.
Binary Clock
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| Binary Clock puts a block-based clock on your TV. |
Probably the simplest and geekiest app available for the Chromecast,
Binary Clock does what it says on the tin
and projects a good-looking block-base clock on to your television. The
free app also allows the colour of the clock to be customised.
RealPlayer Cloud
RealPlayer Cloud for Chromecast is an extension of the company's video streaming and hosting service that plugs directly into the Chromecast. Like Netflix or BBC iPlayer but for a user's own hosted videos – the "Dropbox for video" – RealPlayer Cloud connects directly the Chromecast to the RealPlayer server so that a device can be still be used as a remote or for other things while watching videos.
The service allows videos to be uploaded from a smartphone or computer to RealPlayer Cloud and stream it or cache it on a variety of devices, including the Chromecast.
Cast Store
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| Cast Store makes it easier to find Android-based Chromecast apps. |
Searching the various app stores for “Chromecast” works OK for the most part, but for Android there’s a
better way of finding Chromecast apps called Cast Store – a free app to find more Chromecast apps.
It
breaks them down by function, apps versus games, allowing browsing by
category or via a simple search, and provides click-through links to the
Google Play store to pick them up.
• Google's Chromecast is a fast and simple to use streaming stick, but is only as good as the apps you can get for it
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