Google Cast on Android 4.0+

Question

When targeting Android 4.0+, is it possible to use the new Android Google Cast APIs without using support-v7-appcompat and support-v7-mediarouter? It seems like Android 4.0+ has all the required functionality built-in. Does support-v7-mediarouter contain important bug fixes that aren't present in the stock 4.0 MediaRouter APIs?

As of this time, the Google Play Services 4.2 SDK is not released, so I'm just reading the docs and planning. Since I intend to target Android 4.0+, I'd like to avoid basing everything on the support libraries!

Answer 1

MediaRouter class which is part of the Android framework is different from the one provided in the support-v7-mediarouter library and Cast depends on the latter; so you have to include the v7 support library for media router. That library has dependency on support-v7-appcompat. In short, you need to include both those libraries even if you are targeting 4.0+ versions of Android.