The now-discontinued Chromecast Audio was a $35 audio streaming dongle with a 3.5mm output. Both have good third-party device support New TVs from New TVs from Samsung and others support AirPlay, but you still need an iPhone to use it. At CES 2019, media software VLC announced it was bringing AirPlay to Android, but that's about it aside from some lesser-known apps in Apple's store. Official AirPlay support on Android is sparse, at best. Regardless of whether you have an Android device or an iPhone, Google apps like YouTube and Google Play Music let you use Chromecast, as do numerous third-party apps like Spotify, Pandora, Netflix and Hulu. Meanwhile AirPlay is largely restricted to being initiated on Apple devices. Let's dig in.Ĭhromecast works with more phones, tablets and computersĬhromecast works with Android phones and tablets, iPhones and iPads, and any Chrome browser, whether it's on a PC or a Mac computer. So if you're investing in new equipment, which logo should you be looking for on the box? Is one better than the other? As you can probably guess, it often boils down to whether you use an iPhone or an Android phone. Meanwhile Apple AirPlay 2's main additions are multiroom audio, stereo pairing for the Apple HomePod ($349), and the ability to stream to 2019 televisions.
