After getting Google Play Music up and running on Apple’s platform late last year, Google is now opening up its TV and movie selection to iOS users with the release of the Google Play Movies and TV app. It doesn’t have quite the feature set of the Android counterpart, but it adds an important part of the puzzle to Google’s Chromecast push.
When you get down to it, this app is just a streaming front end for Google’s video store. You won’t be able to buy or rent anything through the app thanks to Apple’s restrictions on so much as linking to outside content. However, anything you rent or purchase in a browser will be immediately available in the Google Play Movies and TV app.
The app has a left slide-out navigation bar that lists your content by either movies, TV, or suggestions. Just tap on a video and it starts playing, but you won’t be able to cache offline on iOS like you can on Android.
In addition to the on-device playback, this app supports the Chromecast. Surprisingly, this makes Google Play Movies and TV the best source for new Chromecast video content on iOS. Netflix and Hulu have lots of video, of course, but it’s mostly older. Apple isn’t likely to support the Chromecast through its video app any time soon, but Google has an assortment that is comparable to Amazon and Apple these days. If you send a video to Chromecast, you will get the full HD quality stream as well.
Image: Flickr (asgw)
The post Google launches Play Movies and TV on iOS appeared first on ITProPortal.