Multitasking on Android with Miracast extended screen app!

I just saw a sample app from Intel developers that lets me run a social networking app on the big screen while I run another app on my Android tablet. Wow - Multitasking!!!

It's called Intel Social Cast (sample app) and it lets you launch your favorite social media app from your Android device and share it on your TV. Then with say Facebook on the big screen, you can run a different app on the Android KitKat* device while still being able to hit Like or perform other interaction on the big screen.

You can see a video of it here on YouTube*.

It's really quick and easy! On the Android tablet you share your screen to the TV (mirrored at this point).


Then open the Social Cast app and choose the social media you want to view. Social Cast opens and shows on both screens but on the Android device, you can now CHANGE to another app while the social app stays running on the big screen!

If you want to run the controls for the app on the TV, simply pull down a menu on the tablet. There's 2 menu sets available - one for standard app actions and one for settings.

And doing so won't affect the other app you have running on the Android device.

Cool, eh?

So, want to multitask with your Android app using an 'extended' screen? There's a couple methods:

Use the MediaRouter API. The media router service keeps track of which audio and video routes are available on the system.
Extend the Presentation class and implement the onCreate() callback.
Within onCreate(), specify your UI for the secondary display by calling setContentView().
See \sdk\sources\android-17\android\app\Presentation.java

Want to see the equivalent on Windows? See this article.

Want code samples? Check out Intel WiDi information on IDZ, the Dual Screen enabling page, and get the Intel Social Cast code samples.

For more complete information about compiler optimizations, see our Optimization Notice.

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