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Ars Technica reports that Google has finally issued a public SDKpublic SDK (software development kit) for its Chromecast HDMI TV dongle, meaning that for the first time, coders of random audio and video playing apps for Android, iOS, or the Chrome browser will be able to incorporate Chromecasting into their apps without having to work closely with Google to do it.

Who knows what kind of apps we’ll get? Might there be a Chromecast e-reader app? It seems kind of unlikely. Due to the restrictions on the user interface, such an app might throw text up on the screen, but the user would have to tap something on the device he’s using to advance the page. Which would mean looking away from the screen a bit to be sure you were tapping the right spot. (Well, unless it used the device’s volume control for paging up and down. That could work.)

At any rate, it shouldn’t be too much longer before we get free video player apps that can play your own content to the Chromecast screen, which has been the device’s biggest drawback to date. Suddenly that $35 dongle is looking like a better investment than ever.

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