The release of the Google Cast software development kit should lead to more Android, Chrome, and iOS apps if you want to work with the Chromecast TV streaming device.

Google released software Monday that permits developers so as to add support for the Google Chromecast streaming device to their Android, Chrome, and iOS apps.

The Chromecast wireless receiver connects to TVs through an HDMI port and may receive content streamed from the cloud, mobile devices, or personal computers. Introduced last summer for $35, the device has proven popular, unlike Google TV, the company’s previous try and integrate television and the net. Though Google has not released Chromecast sales figures, CFO Patrick Pichette said in the course of the company’s earnings call last week that Chromecast was a bestseller during the last quarter of 2013. Chromecast remains on the top of the Amazon.com Best Sellers In Electronics list.

Initially, Chromecast users could access content only through Google Play, Google’s YouTube, and Netflix. Support for HBO, Hulus Plus, and Pandora came later.

[What’s going to Google do next? Read Google In 2014: 10 Predictions.]

In December, Google issued a Chromecast update that added support for 10 more apps, enabling them to transmit content to Chromecast-connected TVs. With the official release of the Google Cast software development kit (SDK), developers can adapt their Android, Chrome, and iOS apps to speak with Chromecast hardware and display content on connected screens. Google previously made a preview Cast SDK release available, so developers could familiarize themselves with the APIs.

Chromecast have been opened to developers just as Apple seems to be preparing to show its “hobby,” Apple TV, right into a full-time business. The Apple Store website now lists its streaming media device Apple TV as a fifth category, alongside the iPad, iPhone, iPod, and Mac product lines. Previously, Apple TV was marketed as a peripheral.

Since Apple made iOS the basis of the software on Apple TV in September 2010, there was speculation about whether the corporate might upgrade Apple TV to run iOS apps. a contemporary 9to5mac report means that apps are coming to Apple TV soon as element of an anticipated product revision. However, it is from clear whether apps running on TVs will ever be anything greater than enlarged versions of mobile apps.

Chromecast is only portion of Google’s effort to compete for a presence in consumers’ living rooms. Through YouTube, it’s been working with engineers at Netflix on Dial, a protocol to assist mobile devices “discover and launch” apps on TVs. Dial is analogous but not just like Apple’s AirPlay and the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Miracast. It’s intended as an easy strategy to pair mobile apps with TV apps, so mobile apps can issue commands to TV apps. AirPlay and Miracast stream content from mobile devices to TVs. All three protocols could be expected to play parts within the infiltration of TVs by mobile devices and streaming hardware.

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Thomas Claburn was writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications comparable to New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and tv, having earned a not particularly useful … View Full Bio

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