Report: Apple to expand AirPlay plans

Man, I could have told you this one: Bloomberg is reporting that Apple plans to extend its AirPlay service out even further, licensing it out to television sets that would then be able to receive and display video directly from iDevices -- bypassing the need to plug in an Apple TV and pay $99. Currently, third-party device support for AirPlay only covers audio and certain AirPlay-enabled stereo devices, but it's far from a stretch to think that Apple will go to video soon, especially since you can currently stream any iTunes media through the AirPlay protocol.

I think we'll go even farther -- the iPad is quickly growing to be as or even more powerful than your average set-top box or console, and it's easy to see a future where your iPad can actually stream both audio and video out to a licensed television while it's playing a game or an app. We've seen a lot of fun stuff already with the video-out feature, and if Apple is able to license out the technology to televisions, that'll be a win-win-win situation for the folks in Cupertino, game developers and the consumers who get to send their media and apps anywhere. I doubt it'll be long before we see AirPlay popping up with a few more new uses.