Apparently the is finally coming Cast protocol support in Android audio output selection system, which debuted with version 11 of the operating system: users updated to Android 13 have begun to report in the past few hours that, at least with YouTube Music, products such as Chromecast, Android TV, Nest Hub and so on are starting to appear in the list . Colleagues of 9to5google signal the arrival of the novelty on a Pixel 7 updated to the stable QPR1 with the December patches (released just a few days ago). Apparently it does not appear in the devices registered in the test program with the new QPR2 Beta 1, released just a few hours ago. For now, the only supported app is YouTube Music.
The output selector is a novelty that can go unnoticed but is very useful in scenarios where you have multiple sets of speakers available – the system in the living room, the Nest Home in the kitchen and so on. To access it, that’s enough press on the icon at the top right of the playback widget which is found for example in the notification curtain or in the Lock Screen of your device, as we said from Android 11 onwards. Unfortunately, apparently, the task of implementing the novelty (not support for the selector in general, but for the Chromecast option specifically) falls to the individual developers – so we can already imagine that its arrival will be slow and substantially spot.
Contextually, always the same source reports that YouTube Music has implemented another small, evidently related, novelty: on the playback page, it appears a floating pill-shaped “pop-up”. at the bottom of the album art inviting you to connect to any speakers/displays with Chromecast protocol currently available nearby. It is interesting to observe that apparently in the case of more than one device available, the one used most frequently is suggested; similarly, the icon is colored with brighter tones in the output selection popup.
