Chromecast, after two weeks.

Just a few weeks ago i bought a Chromecast, not yet officially available in the Netherlands but you can buy it on various online marketplaces. It's one of those seemingly simple devices with a high impact. It specs are not better then Apple TV, it can do less then the various Android HDMI sticks available. Still i will not trade it for one of those. First reason is the price, $ 35 (excluding delivery and additional profits from people reselling it ;-), second reason and the most important one, is the ease of use.
The installation was extremely simple, plug it in to your television, connect to your Wifi. And then..... nothing.
Just open an app that can use it, like Netflix or Youtube and simply "cast". Casting is not streaming but really sending a message to the stick attached to your TV to get some media content from the cloud. Also the reason why Chromecast does not really work nice with "local" files or live-streaming.
My big discovery is that my Youtube habits are changing because of this device. I actually watch more and different. Also Netflix with Chromecast is a big hit with my children.
Future televisions will have this built in without a doubt. I think all media companies will really want to integrate this in their products. Also because it's not open or opensource in anyway, it's a closed and protected device. Not surprising with all media and media companies involved.
Many of the mentioned functionality is also offered by Apple airplay. However Apple only works on Apple. So that's the end of the story. Android is at least half of the user market. In contrast, Chromecast works on my iPad and my android phone/tablet.
The most fun part, to finish this review, is the TV queue on Android, everybody on the same Wifi network can add video's from Youtube and they are played on your TV in a row. Great for parties if I was 20 year younger.

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