Is Google planning to make the Chromecast home screen more informative? Some hidden code powering it certainly seems to suggest so.
Reddit user asjmcguire unearthed references to weather forecasts in the HTML source for the dongle’s main page, as well as links to a set of icons (a selection of which can be seen in the image above) needed to illustrate the appropriate meteorological condition on screen.
Support for showing personal photos and various items related to location were also discovered.
Gone With The Wind
Since being highlighted on Reddit the relevant snippets have been removed from the HTML. Google themselves won’t confirm or deny the feature, deferring their usual statement of ‘we’re always experimenting with new features‘.
Adding personal touches to the Chromecast home screen, which is shown whenever there is no active ‘cast’ taking place, would make sense. The idea that users could specify their own photo backgrounds is one item in particular that seems like a no-brainer.
Google shouldn’t risk crowding the screen with too much information (it’s better to leave some things to applications) but a few accents like weather and custom photos would be more than welcome from where I’m sat.
- Source: Reddit, Via Gigaom