MacLife - UK (2019-12)

BETTER LIVING THROUGH SMARTER TECHNOLOGY

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Image rights: Apple.

AIRPLAY 2?

JUST WHAT IS...

Apple’s evolving media streaming format explained

BY ALEX COX

onos launched its multiroom audio

solution in 2002, utilizing a circle

controller suspiciously similar to that

of Apple’s crazy–popular iPod. Rather

than unleashing its team of legal attack dogs, Apple

responded in kind with the Sonos–esque AirTunes,

released alongside iOS 4 in 2004. This enabled

the sending of audio from iTunes to a speaker–

connected AirPort Express, though AirTunes was,

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protocol. It wasn’t until 2010, when Apple upped

its abilities to go beyond audio streaming, that the

rebranded AirPlay came into its own.

It’s a very easy system to understand: a sender

device (an iPhone or iPad, a Mac or Apple TV) plays

some media, and a receiver device (a speaker, a TV,

or anything else with AirPlay capabilities) plays

that media back. Pretty basic. Some devices,

notably the Apple TV, can pull double duty, acting

both as a sender and a receiver, and there’s a

certain level of two-way communication between

all but the dumbest device and your media source,

since on-board controls will allow you to pause,

tweak the volume, skip tracks et al. Everything in

the chain needs to be Wi–Fi connected, although if

you run a guest network alongside your main SSID

AirPlay is smart enough to traverse the two.

The third major step change came last year, when

AirPlay 2 hit the scene: this turned AirPlay from a

one–to–one streamer to a one–to–many, allowing

multiple AirPlay 2 devices to play the same media

at the same time. Multiroom is arguably a feature

which should have been part of AirPlay 15 years ago,

but let’s not pick holes: it’s here now. It’s also far

from the only improvement. On the audio side,

AirPlay 2 introduced shared playlists, meaning

anyone on your network can queue up the songs

— possibly a blessing, possibly a curse, depending

on your friends’ tastes.

BRAIN BOOST

AirPlay 2 bumps up the smarts in a whole load of

other ways. If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, you

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AirPlay 2 compatible speakers around the home, for

S

The Apple TV+ app will be rolling out to a number of TVs over the

coming months — as will AirPlay 2 and HomeKit compatibility.

68 DEC 2019 maclife.com