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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
