Update: the functionality used by the application was reverse engineered and Google stated that it may change. Google has released a statement which acknowledges that playing local content will come back to ChromeCast once the API has stabilised. Storm in a teacup, apparently.
Heads up. Google’s latest Chromecast update intentionally breaks AllCast. They disabled ‘video_playback’ support from the ChromeCast application.
Given that this is the second time they’ve purposefully removed/disabled[1] the ability to play media from external sources, it confirms some of my suspicions that I have had about the Chromecast developer program: the policy seems to be a heavy handed approach, where only approved content will be played through the device.
A company intentionally disabling cool stuff? Surely you jest.
Remember, Google’s ethical standard is literally (properly used there) the lowest it can be.
Time to stop treating Google as any different from MS, Apple, IBM, etc.
While Google shouldn’t be considered anything other than another company and not put on a pedestal, I don’t think we should ignore the evils of Apple and Microsoft.
The companies are not the same.
Look at the development of Windows and Microsoft’s practices against its opponents in the 90’s (and probably now too once the dust around Nokia has settled), and the current abuse of patents by both Apple and Microsoft to see why Google is so much better.
Google has its faults (and evils), but that is not comparable to them two companies.
While highly unconvenient for users I don’t think this can actually be qualified from an “ethical” sandpoint.
Maybe they actually outright lied about the Chromecast capabilities and I missed it, but otherwise they are just making their product a lot less desirable and as such you should probably wait until they clear this up to decide if it’s worth buying.
If it turns out that you wont ever be able to use Chromecast to stream media from other devices that would certainly suck, but I don’t see it as evil or unethical, just crappy and likely not worth your money.
Now if you told me that Chromecast was modifying your content on the fly and/or injecting subliminal messages to push some kind of political agenda, there I would agree about the evil and unethical bit.
Edited 2013-08-26 23:17 UTC
It seems the guy reversed an API Google specifically marked as “not ready” and prone to be modified.
We know we are in a “hard time” for ethical behavior and freedom respect, with attacks from left and right overstepping their legal obligations but, sure, it does not help to call “guilt!” before an unprejudiced analysis is performed.
OK, dug a little bit more about and this is what I found (scroll to Update):
“http://www.muktware.com/5857/google-breaks-chromecasts-ability-play…
Edited 2013-08-26 17:04 UTC
> it does not help to call “guilt!” before an unprejudiced analysis is performed.
It’s true. For example, today we also have been able to read this:
Ballmer forced out after $900M Surface RT debacle
– http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241867/Ballmer_forced_out_a…
– http://hardocp.com/news/2013/08/26/steve_ballmer_was_forced_out
but that doesn’t mean it’s true!
Edited 2013-08-26 17:19 UTC
Private API justifications are only made for Google when Microsoft is on the receiving end.
That’s when half of this website suddenly supports closed platforms, they abhor them otherwise.
We all know you love Microsoft but why should you use every opportunity to try to make it look good?
Did you read the article? Who said was anything private involved? Please, go back and read it again. The API is not ready and prone to be modified and there was a warning about it, not less, not more.
Perhaps, you have some information that you could share with us, in which case I am all ears.
So they’re not private, they’re just …not public? I see.
The sad thing is that this is how you actually rationalize.
The sad thing is that you say that you are a developer, because if you were you really would know what is the difference between a proper published SDK and one with “don’t count on it to be stable” warning strings attached.
The functionality was removed outright, it wasn’t refactored into another set of classes or methods. Removed. With a semi-vague promise to maybe support it in the future.
Scroll down a couple of comments (“http://www.osnews.com/permalink?570667“) and read what was said by a Google spokesperson. I will take the liberty to accentuate the relevant passage.
So, again, am I sure they will bring the facility back? Nope. Do I understand they they may have the intention to do so? Yep. Do I think that is too early to start “name calling”? Definitively.
Most of the times, on doubt, I prefer to be prudent and refrain to be negatively assertive. And, sincerely, from a long string of big companies, Google has showed to be one of the least evil so I usually give a mildly trust bonus to them. One thing is sure, though, only time will tell which of us put his chips on the wrong bet.
So they removed it, and promised to add it back at some point in the future? Is that right, because I’m not sure why you replied to my comment to restate what I said.
It doesn’t sound like they MODIFIED anything, in which case devs could just update their apps to compensate for the changes. Instead, it sounds to me like they REMOVED the functionality completely.
This reminds me of when Microsoft put HDCP into Windows Vista so it could play blu-rays; geeks around the world threw a shit fit, claiming that Microsoft should’ve stood up for rights of consumers and fought the content industry. And now that Google appears to be catering to their whims as well, suddenly it’s okay? Although we don’t have absolute proof that this is what is happening, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Google is a publicly traded corporation, and doesn’t give any more of a shit about you than MS or Apple do.
Personally, I feel now as I did then… if you want to blame someone for this kind of thing, then make sure it is aimed where it actually belongs – at the feet of the content industry.
Who cares? It was an unstable API and devs warned to use it at their own risk. The guy used something that he very well knew could break at any moment.
Cry me a river or better yet STFU.
Their actions are speaking louder than the spokesman’s words. Either their SDK is so alpha that they really shouldn’t have ever made it public, or their spokesperson is simply out of the loop. It does look like the SDK was originally written to be open and play local content. Now it does not.
Is that any different to the constantly changing ABIs for Linux internal drivers?
Yes, IMHO. There is a huge difference between modifying the kernel and this. With the kernel all development is in the open, so if they change something there is a discussion surrounding the change as it makes its way to Linus’ kernel. There are developers you can email, explaining the reasoning behind the change. You may not agree with it. You may not like it. But the explanation and history are there for anyone to read. Here, with a closed development process, a possibly innocent change is met with suspicion and mistrust.
But in any case it looks like that spokesperson for Google has been making the rounds, repeating the statement to every news outlet, So I guess they released it too soon. If I were in charge at google, I would not make changes, even to a beta sdk, unless there was some communication about why some changes were being made. It just helps prevent this kind of misunderstanding and ill will from your developers.
THANK YOU! I logged in just to make this exact comment.
There is zero evidence google did anything intentional here. The guy reverse engineered an internal API and then his app broke on a subsequent update. OMG, boo f-ing hoo! People angry about this obviously know nothing about what valid expectations are for the stability of an internal API you figure out on your own. As a developer I will say this: Get over it, you don’t understand the situation.
90% chance they are still iterating on the API and that part just isn’t ready yet (and therefore it evolved and broke dude’s app..)
Having said all that, we have no idea what google is doing. Maybe it *was* intentional. Even so, they might be contractually obligated to prevent access to such APIs because of contracts they’ve entered into with TV manufacturers, content providers, etc.
I think part of what people are freaking out over is the definition of what this device *is*. Right now it is a device for streaming youtube and chrome tabs. We all know it will be much more but what? If it is google’s plan for it to be an open streaming device, then that API will emerge when it is ready and all this boo-hoo-ing will stop. But understand that will imply limitations on what sort of content they will be able to provide via partnerships because some content partners won’t like it.
However if it is their plan to make it replace your cable TV box, then there will lots of cool integrations with big name content partners but they will almost certainly lock out some 3rd party stuff that gives users too much freedom.
Either way, that is fine. It is just a product so get over it.
Would it be too much to ask Google to define what it was before I bought it?
I was planning on buying it based off of what devs were saying was possible with the SDK. But it now looks like it would be a better idea to wait until the SDK is released before jumping the gun.
If you asked and they said “No, we’re not ready yet” but you still went ahead and bought one anyway, who’s fault would that be?
This isn’t another PS3 “Other OS” moment no matter how much some people want it to be.
That’s true, but not really what I’m complaining about.
They launched and sold a product that had some features with the promise of more.
I’ve been burned too much by listening to promises of future updates and functionality ( by other companies referring to other products) to really give them the benefit of the doubt. If it doesn’t do what I need it to do at the time of purchase, I won’t purchase it.
This isn’t like Sony removing OtherOS option which was an advertised feature of the PS3.
I’ll be an optimist and believe that they’re working on their own implementation to play local content. Perhaps baked into android 5.0?
People shouldn’t get their panties all up in a bunch when an app built around private api calls / reverse engineering stops working.
What I hope for Android 5.0 is that you can turn any Android device into a ChromeCast receiver.
http://www.muktware.com/5860/confirmed-chromecast-will-be-able-play…
“We’re excited to bring more content to Chromecast and would like to support all types of apps, including those for local content. It’s still early days for the Google Cast SDK, which we just released in developer preview for early development and testing only. We expect that the SDK will continue to change before we launch out of developer preview, and want to provide a great experience for users and developers before making the SDK and additional apps more broadly available.”
OMG people really had a hissy over this with no reason. I feel like everyone’s good will toward google has finally run out and now people are almost looking for excuses to vilify them. They’ve done some shady stuff lately so I get the resentment but wow there was some crazy talk going on.
I never quite understood why people are suddenly so ecstatic over this Chromecast-thing. I mean, DLNA already allows for local streaming of content and the only thing Chromecast seems to bring to the table is allowing the user to make the thing play things from the Web, too. Is there something else? Wouldn’t it be more-or-less the same thing if you just bought one of the cheap Android- or Linux-based sticks and wrote a Firefox-plugin that allows for remote-control of it?
Since DLNA-capable TVs are still relatively rare, I think Chromecast’s main purpose could be to make your average TV capable of wireless streaming, which would be an interesting feat in itself.
However, it also seems Google chose to go the NIH route and come up with yet another new streaming protocol for the Chromecast, which is not so nice. Can someone more familiar with the issue confirm this ?
Edited 2013-08-27 09:30 UTC
More or less yes.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGlhbC1tdWx0aXNjc…
(this link is a bit old though – things might have changed since it was written)
As far as Google re-inventing the wheel… The only thing out there similar in scope and capabilities is Airplay, and Apple isn’t sharing
ps. Yes, Netflix designed the specification for the most part, not Google.
Because Chromecast works flawlessly, which is more than can be said about DLNA and even the more recent Miracast.
Chromecast -or its protocol, DIAL- is also made for streaming content from the web. Local content streaming is just an add-on.
or, if you can stomach approx double the cost of a chromecast stick, then just use twonkybeam http://twonky.com/product/beam/ with a WD TV Live or similar
and you don’t even need to write the browser plugin.
Think they stopped developing the actual Twonkybeam browser plugin (but you can probably still find it somewhere)
or there’s the iOS and android apps.
Not really. Its a fairly clean and simple protocol, but the meat of it lies in the fact that the payload for initiating streaming can be more or less arbitrary and is application defined – it is DRM friendly even though the protocol itself does not implement DRM. In other words it is suitable for “tunneling” DRM in a handoff from one device to another in a way that is transparent to the protocol.
Sure I guess – but you would be limited to streaming using apps that run on the stick… Are the media companies going to actively target supporting your adhoc solution? Nope.
As neat as the thing is (and it is neat), at the end of the day it is about being backed by at least some content providers – because it is DRM friendly. It may ALSO be a neat gadget for media geeks to stream their local content – but that is purely a pleasant side effect of the protocol design (which is actually pretty nice imo).
I think at the end of the day (assuming Google doesn’t cripple it) it is a very nice product. If it can be used for local content by hackers AND works to placate the content providers it is a win-win imo. I despise DRM, but my hatred for it is not going to make it go away…
apparently this whole mess is due to google changing undocumented apis these hacks were using.
http://www.muktware.com/5860/confirmed-chromecast-will-be-able-play…
What’t that? It’s the sound of a whaaambulance.