Setup for Developing With the Cast Application Framework (CAF) for iOS

The Cast framework supports iOS 9 and later, and comes in both static and dynamic frameworks.

See the Google Cast iOS API Reference for descriptions of all classes and methods.

Note that newer generation Cast devices support guest mode for iOS but older generation devices do not. For details, see Guest Mode - Supported Cast Devices.

Xcode setup

iOS 13

iOS 13 Warning: Apple permissions changes to iOS 13 and Xcode 11 have impacted the Google Cast iOS SDK in a number of ways. Please see the iOS 13 Changes document to see how your app will be impacted.

iOS 12

iOS 12 Warning: If developing using Xcode 10 and targeting iOS devices running iOS 12 or higher, the "Access WiFi Information" capability is required in order to discover and connect to Cast devices.

Ensure that the Access WiFi Information switch in the Capabilities section of the target is set to "On".

Additionally, your provisioning profile will need to support the Access WiFi Information capability. This can be added in the Apple Developer Portal.

Cocoapods setup

The recommended way of integrating Google Cast is using the google-cast-sdk Cocoapod or the google-cast-sdk-no-bluetooth Cocoapod if your app does not require the guest mode or you do not wish to require Bluetooth® permission.

To get started, follow the getting started guide.

Once Cocoapods is set up, follow the using cocoapods guide to get your Podfile created and your project ready to use with the Google Cast SDK.

Here is an example of the google-cast-sdk Cocoapod in a Podfile:

use_frameworks!

platform :ios, '9.0'

def target_pods
  pod 'google-cast-sdk'
end

target 'CastVideos-objc' do
  target_pods
end
target 'CastVideos-swift' do
  target_pods
end

Here is an example of the google-cast-sdk-no-bluetooth Cocoapod in a Podfile:

use_frameworks!

platform :ios, '9.0'

def target_pods
  pod 'google-cast-sdk-no-bluetooth'
end

target 'CastVideos-objc' do
  target_pods
end
target 'CastVideos-swift' do
  target_pods
end

For your project, you should specify a range for your pods to prevent unexpected breaking changes as detailed in the podfile guide.

In this example, version 4.4 and the versions up to 5.0 are allowed, not including 5.0 and higher:

pod 'google-cast-sdk', '~> 4.4'

Manual setup

The following instructions are for manually adding the framework to your project.

Note: If you manually add the static framework to your project, you must install the Protobuf library dependency using the instructions found on the Protobuf GitHub repo. This is not necessary when using the dynamic framework.

Libraries without guest mode have been provided for situations where your app does not require the feature or you do not wish to require Bluetooth® permissions, which have been introduced in iOS 13. Please see the iOS 13 Changes document for more information.

Download the Cast 4.4.6 iOS Sender API libraries:

Static with Guest Mode Static without Guest Mode

Dynamic with Guest Mode Dynamic without Guest Mode

Key Point: Starting with version 4.3.1, Cocoapods uses static libraries to avoid duplicate symbol warnings caused by a shared Protobuf library dependency when using the Firebase and Cast SDKs together. Although this change will result in a larger download, the final app size will not increase.

If the size difference is a concern for your situation, download the dynamic library to get a size similar to pre-4.3.1 versions of the Cocoapod library.

In your Xcode project, set the Other Linker Flags in Build Settings to: -ObjC -lc++.

In your Xcode project, add the following framework libraries (linked, not embedded):

• Accelerate.framework
• AudioToolbox.framework
• AVFoundation.framework
• CFNetwork.framework
• CoreBluetooth.framework
• CoreData.framework
• CoreGraphics.framework
• CoreMedia.framework
• CoreText.framework
• Foundation.framework
• GoogleCast.framework
• MediaAccessibility.framework
• MediaPlayer.framework
• QuartzCore.framework
• Security.framework
• SystemConfiguration.framework
• UIKit.framework

The libraries appear in your project as follows:

Next, add the GoogleCast.framework to the Embedded Binaries section of the General tab in the target's settings. Do not remove GoogleCast.framework from the Linked Frameworks and Libraries section; it must still be in there as well.

Ensure that the Runpath Search Paths setting of the Build Settings in the project's settings is set to "@executable_path/Frameworks".

Ensure that the settings in the Embed Frameworks section of Build Phases lists the GoogleCast.framework.

Publishing your app to App Store

Before publishing your app to the App Store, you need to run shell script strip_unused_archs.sh to strip unused architectures from the app bundle. This script is in the Cast SDK for iOS.