airplay
Latest
AirPlay running on XBMC Linux box
AirPlay. It's not just for Apple products anymore. The video you see on the next page shows an XBMC install on a Ubuntu Linux box running an AirPlay client service. As with the AirPlayer solution I wrote for the Mac, the XBMC application advertises on Bonjour and can be played to directly from the built-in iOS video menus. In addition, several people have contacted me to mention that they're working on Windows adaptations as well. The photo below is a preliminary peek at an in-progress project being built by @infectionfx. Thanks, davilla.
AirFlick turns Macintosh into an AirPlay data server
If you own a Macintosh and an Apple TV, I have created a new tool that allows you to stream data outside of iTunes. It's called AirFlick, and it's now available in alpha form for download and testing. Last week, I put together a related application called AirPlayer that allows you to stream video from your iPad using Apple's built in AirPlay services and demonstrated it on TUAW. AirPlayer works by emulating an Apple TV using your Mac's built in Bonjour networking capabilities. Below is a description and brief video explaining how it works. Update: TUAW reader BC adds: How to Add Live Conversion to Erica Sadun's AirFlick App Ok, by doing this hack, you can stream ANY video format sitting on your Mac to your AppleTV. I'm testing out an mkv file right now, and it works like a charm! Download the unofficial Mac AirVideo client here. Start playback of a video using live conversion from within this unofficial client, it should hand off the streaming video to Quicktime X. Inspect the stream by viewing the Movie Inspector (check the "Window" menu for Quicktime). Write down that url. Paste that url into Erica Sadun's Airflick app and boom now your AppleTV can basically play any video you throw at it! Looking forward to someone streamlining the process into a neat little app. OPTIONAL One extra little note: you don't have to necessarily download the unofficial Mac AirVideo client above. You can instead begin playback of a video from within the AirVideo iphone app, then go to the mac serving up the stream, and type "ps ax | grep ffmpeg", and grab the alphanumeric string following the --conversion-id flag. Then paste into AirFlick the following: http://[YOUR-SERVER'S-IP-ADDRESS]:45631/live-playback-2.4.0/index_[CONVERSION-ID].m3u8
Apple releases Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station firmware update to fix AirPlay issues
We've heard several reports of people having various problems trying to stream movies and music to their AppleTV via AirPlay using Time Capsules and AirPort Base Stations. Hopefully for those experiencing problems, your solution is just a download away. Apple has just released AirPort Base Station and Time Capsule Firmware Update 7.5.2. The update "fixes some issues with AirPlay streaming." Additionally it provides: General fixes to Wi-Fi base station stability General fixes with USB interoperability including connection to external storage devices Fixes some issues with NAT port mapping settings Disables TKIP security with 802.11n rates per the Wi-Fi Alliance specifications The firmare update is for all 802.11n capable AirPort base stations and Time Capsules and requires Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later, Windows XP SP3 or later, Windows Vista SP1 or later, or Windows 7.
AirPlay video streaming from iOS devices hacked into Macs (video)
Hey Mac home theater users, listen up -- your AirPlay wishes have come true. TUAW's very own Erica Sadun has developed a free (ad supported) 0.01 AirPlayer alpha hack that lets your Mac play host to AirPlay video streamed off of iOS devices. Right, just like an Apple TV and without requiring a Jailbreak. But as long as you're skirting official support anyway, why not install the free AirVideoEnabler app onto your jailbroken iPod touch, iPad, or iPhone to stream video from even more applications than Apple currently allows. Works for us. Everyone else can check the video after the break.
Introducing AirPlayer: Mac-based AirPlay service allows device-to-Mac playback
AirPlay is a very, very cool technology. Unfortunately, if you don't own an Apple TV 2 or other capable receiving device, it's not going to do you much good. (If you have the cash on-hand, for $99, the Apple TV mark 2 is a pretty sweet purchase. Just saying.) So I decided to figure out a way that people who didn't own an Apple TV, or who were on the road with their iPhone and a laptop could actually use AirPlay streaming "backwards" -- from their iDevice to their Mac. Behold our TUAW exclusive introduction, the development build of AirPlayer -- click Read More to see the video. What AirPlayer does is create and advertise a custom Bonjour AirPlay service that pretends to be an Apple TV. Bonjour is Apple's zero configuration networking solution for allowing devices and applications to communicate with each other over local area networks. When Apple created AirPlay, it basically set up a new way for Apple TV to interact with iOS using Bonjour communications.
How would you change the second-generation Apple TV?
No one said that hobbies were easy to throw away, and it's pretty clear that the Apple TV still holds a dear piece of Cupertino's heart. In fact, we'd argue that the box's streaming abilities now tie into Apple's overall mission more than ever before, and with iOS 4.2.1 for the iPad (and the accompanying introduction of AirPlay), it's feeling less like an afterthought and more like a focal point. That said, we're curious to know if early adopters feel satisfied by their $99 box. Have you found it to function as-advertised? Still fuming over those output and / or color issues? If you were given the keys to the design kingdom, how would you turn the Apple TV into your perfect media streamer? Ditch the iTunes integration? Offer access to more content portals? Paint it pink and line it with LEDs? It only costs $0.02 to play, and the deposit slot's just below.
Ubuntu One music streaming app updated with AirPlay support
Download Squad tipped us off that the Ubuntu One Music app has been updated to support Apple's new AirPlay streaming system. As such, it can now play music from your iOS device via any Apple TV or Airport Express unit on your network. Ubuntu One is a cloud storage service from the vendor of the popular Linux distribution of the same name. Much like MobileMe and Dropbox, it allows the user to upload files to cloud servers and to synchronize personal information such as calendars, contact lists, and bookmarks -- with support for Linux, Windows, and mobile devices. Unlike the other services, however, Ubuntu One has a strong emphasis on music streaming. It has an integrated music store and allows users to supplant music purchases with uploads of their own music to their cloud space. Store-bought and uploaded files are both available for streaming back out. The iOS app that was updated today is a client for receiving that streaming audio on your iOS devices, over WiFi or 3G connections. This differs from stream-music-from-home services like Simplify Media because it doesn't rely on you having a computer at home powered up to stream the music from -- the files come from the cloud. There is a cost associated with using Ubuntu's system. The service offers 2GB of basic storage for free, but mobile support is $4 a month / $40 per year (the app itself is free) and extra storage, in blocks of 20GB, is $3 per month / $30 per year. As such, Ubuntu One is probably only really interesting to people with lots of Ubuntu computers in their life.
Dear Aunt TUAW: Can I AirPlay to my Mac?
Dear Aunt TUAW, Do you think a Mac will be able to accept an AirPlay feed in the future? Here's why I ask -- I'm considering getting a Mac mini for my home theater. But I realized that a great feature of AppleTV is the AirPlay functionality. It seems strange that the mini (that costs 7x more) lacks this functionality. Have you heard any rumblings that accepting an AirPlay stream could come to Mac OS X? Love & snuggles, Your adoring nephew Todd V.
New 'iPad Is Amazing' ad touts iOS 4.2 features
Apple's latest iPad commercial, "iPad Is Amazing", is touting iOS 4.2's new features including AirPrint, AirPlay, multitasking, and folders. Aimed at corralling holiday technology shoppers, this new ad definitely offers up something for everyone in the family. Just for the record, I will admit that bought an iPad when they were first announced. I will also admit that I returned it one week later, as I didn't feel that it did anything that my MacBook and iPhone couldn't already do at the time. Thinking back to that week I understand why I felt that way then, but with the new OS and all the apps available now I think I could find a use for an iPad in my house today. Click Read More to check out the new ad.
TUAW TV Live: AirPrint, AirPlay, RapidWeaver, and more
It's nearly 5 PM ET, which means it's time for TUAW TV Live. This is the weekly livestreaming video show where me and a group of Apple geeks get together to chat about the latest news from Cupertino and beyond. Today's show is all about what iOS 4.2 brought to the picture. I'll do some live demos of some of the features in action, and will have recorded video for other features that need an Apple TV to show off. I'll also be demoing RapidWeaver 5.0, which was released today. You can even enter to win a free license for RapidWeaver, valued at US$79. How can you join in on the fun? From your Mac or PC, go to the next page by clicking the read more link at the bottom of this post, and you'll find a livestream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to participate by asking questions or making comments. If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone by downloading the free Ustream Viewing Application. We haven't neglected our iPad users, since you can tune in to TUAW TV Live on your iPad! That link will send you to a non-Flash page, although you won't have access to our chat tool. And one final note -- if the show has started and you're seeing a previously recorded show instead of the livestream, you can always pop on over to ustream.tv/tuaw to join the show in progress.
TUAW TV Live: The post-iOS 4.2 show
A few weeks ago, in anticipation of iOS 4.2 making its way to our iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, I hosted an hour-long episode of TUAW TV Live in which we journeyed together through some of the upcoming features of the OS upgrade. On today's show, we'll see how well some of the new features work in reality. I'll show you how AirPrint works from iPad and iPhone using Ecamm's Printopia software on the Mac, play with AirPlay, and discuss the pros and cons of iOS 4.2. With RapidWeaver 5.0 now available and a giveaway of ten licenses for the popular web design tool going on right now here on TUAW, I'll also be demonstrating the new version of the application and highlighting some of the features of RapidWeaver 5.0. With Apple seemingly ignoring iWeb during the release of iLife '11, RapidWeaver is looking like a contender for the title of best easy-to-use web design tool. Join us at 5 PM ET today here at TUAW. Just drop by a few minutes before the start of the show for instructions on how to view the livestream and participate in the chat. Remember that all TUAW TV Live shows are archived for your viewing pleasure on Ustream.
Steve Jobs "hopes" AirPlay will support Safari and third-party apps next year
MacRumors is reporting that one of their readers emailed Steve Jobs to ask if Apple was ever going to enable AirPlay to stream videos from third-party apps or those embedded in a web page in Safari. Jobs answered: "Yep, hope to add these features to Airplay in 2011." AirPlay is the technology introduced in iOS 4.2 that enables users to stream content from their iOS devices to televisions connected to an Apple TV. A number of third-party developers have also introduced AirPlay products, like the Photofast AP1000 that allows you to stream music to your car's audio system. Currently, AirPlay video support is limited to the YouTube, Photos and Video apps that come bundled as part of iOS -- although we've seen several compelling proof-of-concept demos courtesy of our own Erica Sadun, and jailbroken devices already have an option to activate AirPlay for other apps. The addition of an AirPlay API is going to make a lot of developers happy in 2011.
PhotoFast's AP1000 takes AirPlay support to your car
3.5mm auxiliary inputs and stereo Bluetooth used to be good enough -- but that was before Apple announced AirPlay a few months ago. Now, everything else sounds like someone is stabbing you in the ears; the world looks black and white, and food no longer has any taste. AirPlay, save us! Taiwanese firm PhotoFast is playing the superhero role here today with the AP1000, a little black module with WiFi that accepts incoming AirPlay streams and routes them through to your car's stereo. From the demo video, it's obvious that you're probably going to want to get a professional car audio installer involved to make this happen -- and before you ask, no, it won't do video -- but if you've got an Apple logo sticker on your rear window, we bet this is exactly how you want to roll. Follow the break to see the AP1000 get surgically implanted in a Mercedes.
AirVideoEnabler ready for jailbroken iPhones/iPads, streams video to Apple TV
Apple's much-awaited AirPlay service disappointed a lot of users when it shipped without API access for third-party apps -- you can only send video from iOS devices out to the Apple TV from Apple-blessed apps like Video and YouTube. But that hasn't stopped hackers from trying to figure out how to share more video across that AirPlay connection, and here they've gone and done it. Above, you can see a jailbreak app called AirVideoEnabler in action, that will push out video from any iOS app (including Safari) to the Apple TV. The app was supposed to be for sale in the Cydia store, but the creator, TUAW commenter Zone-MR, says he's decided to make it free instead. You can add it from his repo, or look for it on your favorite repository soon. Of course, the catch here is that you'll need to be running a jailbroken iOS device, which means it can't really be a mainstream patch in terms of fixing Apple's AirPlay deficiencies. And if, like our own Victor Agreda, you wanted to stream this video to anything other than an Apple TV (like a MacBook or any other connected device), this solution won't help you there, either. But it's a sharp demonstration of what the hacker community can do, even over Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe if it's this simple for Zone-MR to pull off, Apple will see fit to bless the AirPlay APIs for use in App Store apps soon.
AirVideoEnabler hack brings AirPlay video to the rest of your apps
Apple's new AirPlay video streaming functionality is great... unless you want to use it in a non-Apple app. For whatever reason, Apple is restricting AirPlay video to just its first party apps right now, and not even all of those (Safari is left out, for instance). Interestingly, Apple actually built the functionality in, it's just not enabled. Thanks to some "spelunking" work by TUAW's Erica Sadun, it was discovered that a single line of code is all that's necessary to spread the feature to any app that relies on Apple's MediaPlayer framework, including VLC, AirVideo, and even Safari. Now Zone-MR has built a hack called AirVideoEnabler and put it on Cydia, allowing you to bring this functionality to your own jailbroken iPad. For the hack-averse, let's hope Apple catches up in functionality soon. Check out a video of AirVideoEnabler and Erica's original hack in action after the break.
Apple TV Hacking: Spelunking into the AirPlay video service
When Apple announced its new iOS 4.2 feature set, Apple TV's AirPlay video service really caught our attention. That's why we were particularly disappointed when 4.2 debuted on Monday -- only Apple's own applications could ship video from iDevices to the 2nd generation Apple TV; third party applications were limited to audio transport only. We contacted Apple PR to ask for a statement about that, asking why the feature shipped without third party support -- and whether it had to do with performance licenses or similar legal matters. TUAW has not yet heard back from Apple at the time this post went live. Mike Rose asked if I could poke into the situation and see what's going on under the hood. Here's what I found. Big Massive Update: Thanks to Steven Troughton-Smith, the code has been reduced to a single line with no YouTube work-arounds needed. Details appended to the bottom of the post...
Photofast AP1000 brings AirPlay audio streaming to your car
Now that iOS 4.2 and AirPlay are officially available for our Apple portable devices, we're starting to see third-party devices that can take advantage of the new capability. Among the first of those is the AP1000 from Japan's PhotoFast. The AP1000 is a Wi-Fi host that gets wired into a car audio system to receive AirPlay streams. The little box supports 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi signals, and once it's connected to 12 volt power and an input on the audio system, it should appear in the AirPlay connection screen on the iOS device. It's probably just as well that there doesn't appear to be any in-vehicle video streaming support with the AP1000, although it could be handy if you have a rear-seat entertainment system for the kids. For many new vehicles that already have built-in support for Bluetooth audio streaming, the AP1000 doesn't really seem to provide any additional functionality, although the audio fidelity may be somewhat improved. PhotoFast is currently seeking a distributor outside of Japan, so we have no idea when the AP1000 will be available in the U.S. or how much it will cost. Check out the video of a sample installation in the second part of the story.
Hands on: AirPlay for audio streaming in depth
My colleague Mike Rose has already taken a long look at video streaming via AirPlay and found it a rather mixed bag. Although it works well as far as it goes, it doesn't support non-Apple apps -- even video streaming ones such as Netflix -- and can't even manage to stream video footage shot on an iPhone from the iPhone to an Apple TV. Meanwhile, Victor Agreda wasn't at all impressed that AirPlay doesn't offer the ability to stream his iTunes library to an iOS device. However, as someone who owns two Airport Express units and zero Apple TVs, I was more interested from the original announcement in September in audio streaming. So as soon as iOS 4.2.1 hit this was the feature I first turned to and tested out. Here are my findings of what it does, what works well, and what doesn't.
Why I'm skipping AirPlay
It's pretty simple: I want to stream music from my Mac to my iPad or iPhone. Why? Because I sometimes connect one of those iOS devices to a home stereo. Those devices do not contain my entire iTunes library. Unfortunately, AirPlay won't let me stream my iTunes library to my iOS devices. Thus, I'm not able to use AirPlay in my home. I don't own an Apple TV. The Airport Express I have is an older model that causes my Airport Extreme Base Station to freak out, requiring frequent reboots of either device, often randomly, never at a good moment. Yet, with all the awesomeness of AirPlay, I cannot do one simple thing: play music (or anything else) from my $2,000+ MacBook Pro to my iPad. Instead, Apple wants me to pony up another $99 for an Apple TV -- a device I simply don't need right now. I'm not sure why this is so. There is a 3rd party application on the store right now that will do this called AirVideo Stream to Me.* In fact, true to its name, it'll stream more than music. I used to use Airfoil to do this from Mac to Mac and from Mac to iPhone. Why this seemingly simple use case is hobbled by Apple's design is beyond me. It's such a puzzler that I wrote Steve Jobs an email about it. Naturally, I have yet to hear from him. So I'm throwing it open to the audience: would you also like to stream music or photos or movies from your Mac to your iDevice? %Poll-56139% *Update: To clarify, AirVideo streams video. Stream to Me, as noted by irate tipster Lee Wheeler, streams music, movies and photos from Mac to iOS device (not Apple TV, however). photo by flickr user niceness
Hands on with AirPlay: iPad and Apple TV updates make a magic combination
On the topic of iPad 4.2 and Apple TV 4.1, the first version combination to support video streaming via AirPlay, we might as well get all the caveats out of the way first. Yes, you still can't push streaming audio or video from your Mac to your iPad without third-party apps. No, you can't use AirPlay to show videos from your iPhone's camera roll, and people are plenty steamed about that. It's not a codec issue, as iTunes can easily stream the same videos to the Apple TV, so most likely the iPhone 4's AirPlay implementation isn't quite fully baked yet to handle those streams. You can't play video from most iPad apps until they're revised for iOS 4.2 (which may not be possible yet, see note below); right now it's the Video app and YouTube for videos, Photos app for picture slideshows, iTunes for streaming from your Mac. Aside from audio (supported from most applications) that's all there is. Some iPad apps (Hulu Plus, for example) may never allow AirPlay support for licensing reasons. [Update: As noted by a commenter below, the current version of the iOS SDK does not expose the video portion of the AirPlay APIs to third parties, meaning that any app developers who are reportedly looking to implement video streaming (like Netflix) are going to have to negotiate support with Apple on a case by case basis. If the SDK is revised once the frameworks stabilize and third parties do get access to the AirPlay video streaming capabilities, that changes the landscape considerably.] Doesn't matter. AirPlay is astonishing. In a stroke, the $99 Apple TV has been transformed from a capable but somewhat pedestrian streaming player and video rental device into a true digital hub -- the home entertainment equivalent of a Star Trek replicator. Pushing content to the Apple TV feels fundamentally different than pulling from iTunes, mostly because it's so much easier to control and switch when sitting in front of the full library. Pushing video from the iPad to the big screen is revelatory; it looks and sounds fantastic, and knowing that I can walk into any Apple TV-equipped household and instantly show any media on my device is going to make that holiday gift list for the grandparents a lot easier. It's true that the lack of iPhone camera roll playback is pretty surprising, and for a lot of people that potential feature was a big driver in going out and getting the Apple TV in the first place. I hope it gets corrected soon, but there's plenty more in AirPlay that's worth exploring. Let's walk through the one-click Apple TV update process and take a look at the basic AirPlay functionality.
