British audio equipment maker Bowers & Wilkins is expected to release its first AirPlay 2-enabled receivers in the near future.

bowers wilkins logo
A pair of new Bowers & Wilkins receivers named Formation Audio and Formation Duo are listed as "coming soon" in Apple's recently updated list of HomeKit and ‌AirPlay‌ accessories. Bowers & Wilkins releasing receivers is interesting in itself, as the company is better known for high-fidelity speakers and headphones.

bowers wilkins airplay 2
Bowers & Wilkins has yet to announce the products, but we did find a cached GDPR-related fair processing notice page on its website from December 2018 that mentions a line of Formation products, including the Formation Duo, Formation Audio, Formation Bar, Formation Wedge, and Formation Bass.

‌AirPlay‌ 2 would allow the receivers to work with other ‌AirPlay‌ 2 devices such as the HomePod, the Apple TV, and Sonos speakers. ‌AirPlay‌ 2 receivers also appear in Apple's Home app across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

Bowers & Wilkins, acquired by Eva Automation in 2016, will join Denon and Marantz, Bluesound, and Naim in offering ‌AirPlay‌ 2 receivers.

Tags: AirPlay, Bowers & Wilkins

Top Rated Comments

SanJoseEd Avatar
SanJoseEd
68 months ago
So can the homepod work with apple tv?
For movies?
Absolutely and quite nice when two are used as a 'stereo pair'. I've never even used them for music - just TV and movies pumped out of an ATV4. There was a break-in period in late Spring last year before the HomePods' latter OS was published, but ever since then, volume's been fine and the 'stereo' output does at times seem to project appropriate noise and sound from the movies' soundtracks making it sound like something more than stereo.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
fairuz Avatar
fairuz
68 months ago
AirPlay 2 in receivers is great, but I'd really like a standalone AirPlay 2 device too... like the AirPort Express was for AirPlay 1 and AirTunes. That paired with whatever receivers we had made for a great home music setup as far back as ~2003.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tom.humphrey Avatar
tom.humphrey
68 months ago
I've got a B&W A5 which sounds amazing when the airplay works. Constantly plagued with audio drop outs.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments

Popular Stories

iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Read Full Article
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Read Full Article • 86 comments
maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Read Full Article • 280 comments
apple id account

Apple ID Accounts Logging Out Users and Requiring Password Reset

Saturday April 27, 2024 12:41 am PDT by
There are widespread reports of Apple users being locked out of their Apple ID overnight for no apparent reason, requiring a password reset before they can log in again. Users say the sudden inexplicable Apple ID sign-out is occurring across multiple devices. When they attempt to sign in again they are locked out of their account and asked to reset their password in order to regain access. ...
Read Full Article • 297 comments
macbook pro purple february

Best Buy Introduces Record Low Prices on Apple's M3 MacBook Pro for Members

Thursday April 25, 2024 7:41 am PDT by
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Read Full Article • 44 comments
macos sonoma feature purple green

Apple's Regular Mac Base RAM Boosts Ended When Tim Cook Took Over

Friday April 26, 2024 6:34 am PDT by
Apple used to regularly increase the base memory of its Macs up until 2011, the same year Tim Cook was appointed CEO, charts posted on Mastodon by David Schaub show. Earlier this year, Schaub generated two charts: One showing the base memory capacities of Apple's all-in-one Macs from 1984 onwards, and a second depicting Apple's consumer laptop base RAM from 1999 onwards. Both charts were...
Read Full Article • 397 comments