Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hmmdar 3254 days ago
Na that's a bunch of BS Amazon came up with to validate their position. There is nothing stopping Amazon from putting Chromecast app support other than Amazon. The only thing I can guess is Amazon wanted chromecast to enable support for their player format and chromecast didnt'.
1 comments

The Chromecast app is a Google App. Google App access is conditional on agreeing to a Google contract called the MADA which requires device makers preinstall all of their software and set Google Search as default.

One of those apps is Google Play Books. So in order for Google to permit them to support Chromecast, Amazon would've had to agree to pre-install their competitor's ebook store on every single Kindle.

See the issue?

I read the Google Cast SDK license agreement and didn't see anything about search engines or requiring certain apps to be installed.
The Cast SDK is not at issue, the Google Cast app likely is. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...)
Additionally, I'm pretty sure one of the conditions is also to make the Play Store the primary (if not only) preinstalled source of apps for the device. This conflicts with Amazon's own app store, which is integrated into the Amazon app (as distributed by Amazon; the one on the Play Store omits this feature).

Hell, the whole Play Store is basically a direct competitor to Amazon's multimedia offerings. While Amazon's own behavior is scummy, it's also unsurprising given the situation.

That would be for adding chromecast support to their devices... doesn't preclude them from supporting chromecast, or having Amazon Video in the Google Play store, supporting chromecast for playback.
Adding Chromecast support to their devices is what this blockage is about. Amazon doesn't want to sell devices that won't be supported by their Kindle Fire line of products.
They also already have a contract with Bing for search.