Android app AllCast has just left beta, and is now available as a full version for all to try out. There’s a free version and a paid license, so you can find out if this Swiss army knife of media streamers for Google’s mobile OS works for you. It accomplishes the impressive feat of letting you stream from your Android phone or tablet to the Apple TV, or any other AirPlay-enabled devices you may have.
This is pretty much the dream app for anyone heavily invested in Apple’s accessory ecosystem but looking to make a switch to Android. The current version only supports video and image streaming, but it works as advertised, and the developers promise music support is coming soon. All of my AirPlay speakers showed up as available devices, as well as my Apple TV, and the interface presents a simple two-step process where you just pick your streaming destination and then choose the media you want to stream (the app automatically scans your phone for compatible file types).
Unlike with native AirPlay, content has to be played from the AllCast app itself to work, but it also supports DLNA streaming and will broadcast to Roku, Xbox One (and Xbox 360), Samsung and Panasonic Smart TVs and any Google TV device. Chromecast, Google’s tiny streaming dongle, isn’t supported, but AllCast says the ball is in Google’s court to enable that as of right now.
It’s still early days for AllCast, even though it’s stable enough for a 1.0 release, so you might have to relaunch the app to get it to work properly with your target stream destinations and if you throw it into landscape during playback you might lose control over play/pause functions. But once it gets properly set up, it just works, and it’s amazing how good it feels to be able to get the content on your Android tablet or smartphone up there on the big screen using devices you already own, instead of having to look around for something with Miracast built-in, or going directly to Google for a Chromecast, even if that is only 30 bucks.