Amazon has announced a new tool that's a lot like AirPlay or Google Cast.

The tool basically enables you to share multimedia content or stuff from mobile apps to Amazon's Fire TV. Amazon launched the Amazing Fling software toolkit for developers on 10 July, with the goal of making photos, music, or videos running on Android, iOS, or FireOS apps sharable with Amazon's set-top box.

"This new service is a cross-platform toolkit that enables mobile developers to build rich multi-screen experiences for Amazon Fire TV. At its core, the Amazon Fling SDK allows sending video, audio and images from iOS and Android mobile apps to Amazon Fire TV," explained Amazon in a blog post.

So, with Fling, you'll be able to open a mobile app, and then tap the Fling icon that should appear near a streaming or sharing menu. At that point, content from the app will be sent to the Amazon Fire TV. You could be watching a video in an app, for instance, and then make it appear a display connected to Fire TV.

Apple TV has a similar tool called AirPlay, while Google's Chromecast has Google Cast. And now, Amazon's Fire TV, which costs about $99, has Fling. Developers simply need to add Fling capability to their iOS and Android apps. It's unclear if or when many will actually do that, but we can't imagine why not.

Especially because it allows developers' existing apps to work with Amazon Fire TV - thus elminating the need for them to build Fire TV versions of their apps from scratch. In other words: Fling basically lets developers leverage the power of Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick without requiring much effort from them.

As for consumers, Fling will be yet another easy way to beam content from our mobile devices to the big screen.