The Chromecast and the Android TV are the two TV platforms that Google is offering in their fight to be a player in the TV market. While both are great platforms they are different in certain little ways. Android TV, for example, uses a remote has an app store to pick from and can work with third-party apps giving you that open platform feeling that we have all gotten a costume to with the Android operating system and marketplace. The Chromecast is a little more closed architecture as you can only Chromecast from apps that offer Chromecasting. While this allows for significantly more usable apps it can limit you if the app does not support Chromecasting in that case just go ahead and cast your entire screen. The issue with the Chromecast is you are limited to whatever apps are offered and cannot use third-party plugins for playing services. But the plus with Android TV is it supports chromecasting. So, if you have an Android TV you get both the Android TV interface and the functionality of Chromecast in the event there is not an app on the Android TV app store for viewing putting Android TV ahead of products like Roku or Apple TV that limit you to whatever apps are in the app store. The Chromecast and the Android remote app are both supported by Android and iOS so there will be no compatibility issues between operating systems. Cost is about the same the Chromecast is about $20 dollars cheaper than the Android TV box but the cost difference is not significate. To me, the Chromecast feels like a more polished product and gets announced and pushed much more at the Google developer conferences and hardware events. Android TV seems to be the product that gets a lot of...
