App developers wanting to add the ability to bring content from one screen to another through their app usually use Apple’s AirPlay or Google Cast to do so, but now Amazon has its own set of developer tools to use. Known as Fling, this SDK “allows sending video, audio and images from iOS, Android or Fire OS mobile apps to Amazon Fire TV.”
Amid a slew of developer-focused announcements from Amazon today focused on things like using AWS for app testing, and the arrival of a new API Gateway service, for example, the company also introduced the new “Amazon Fling” service. Available as an SDK for iOS and Android applications, Amazon Fling allows developers to build apps that can send media content to Amazon’s Fire TV as well as work as “second screen” or companion apps to what’s already running on Fire TV. “Flinging,” which is basically Amazon’s own version of Chromecast’s “casting,” lets a mobile app maker send a video, audio or images from their iOS or Android app to a user’s big screen TV by way of the Amazon Fire TV media player. It does this by simplifying the underlying network discovery and communication technologies that would otherwise be difficult to implement, the company explains.
