iOS 17 AirPlay Features - MacRumors
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iOS 17 AirPlay Features

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With the iOS 17 update, Apple is updating and refining almost every iPhone app and feature, and that includes AirPlay. ‌AirPlay‌ is Apple's wireless communication protocol that allows music and video content from iPhones, iPads, and Macs to be beamed to devices like the Apple TV, HomePod, and third-party speakers, smart TVs, set-top boxes, and receivers.

iOS 17 AirPlay Feature
This guide highlights the changes that Apple is making to ‌AirPlay‌ in iOS 17, with these features also available in iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma.

AirPlay Preferences

iOS 17 improves on-device intelligence for ‌AirPlay‌, and it is able to better learn your preferences over time. If you typically ‌AirPlay‌ from your iPhone to the ‌Apple TV‌ in the living room, it will learn that behavior and show the ‌Apple TV‌ first in your ‌AirPlay‌ list over other ‌AirPlay‌ devices that may be in the home.

ios 17 airplay
Devices are shown in the ‌AirPlay‌ interface based on relevance, and you'll also now see suggested connections proactively based on your prior ‌AirPlay‌ usage.

The ‌AirPlay‌ interface is smarter from the outset, and it shows the devices that are located closest to you first rather than offering up a more arbitrary list. The ‌AirPlay‌ interface also makes it clearer which device content is AirPlaying to and whether ‌AirPlay‌ is active.

Automatic AirPlay

The Automatic ‌AirPlay‌ feature that was available for TVs in iOS 16 has expanded to include speakers as well in iOS 17. You can opt in to have the iPhone automatically connect to nearby speakers and TVs when playing content from apps that you regularly use with ‌AirPlay‌.

ios 17 airplay automatic
Previously, this setting was limited to ‌AirPlay‌ TVs.

AirPlay in Hotel Rooms

Apple is teaming up with hotel chains and TV manufacturers to introduce smart TV sets that will let hotel guests automatically ‌AirPlay‌ content from their Apple devices to the hotel TV.

airplay hotels
The option will let guests watch their own TV shows and movies without having to sign into streaming accounts on shared televisions, providing more security for viewing content when traveling.

IHG Hotels and Resorts will be the first hotel company to bring ‌AirPlay‌ to its hotels, and LG plans to introduce AirPlay-compatible smart TVs designed specifically for use in hotels.

Read More

You can get more information on the changes coming in iOS 17 in our comprehensive iOS 17 roundup.

Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17

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Top Rated Comments

PsykX Avatar
PsykX
40 months ago
I hope it's more reliable, because I've been having a lot of screen flickers and then AirPlay quits right after... on multiple Apple TVs and iPhones in the last 5-6 years.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
K
krell100
40 months ago
Is Airplay still limited to 24/48? I'd like to see an updated Airplay that allows streaming the full bandwidth of high resolution files in Apple Music (24/192). Also, Apple, please fix the auto sample/bit rate changing in macOS, why does it work in iOS but not macOS??!!
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ShivneelSingh Avatar
ShivneelSingh
40 months ago
Just allow me to not include my HomePods as my speakerphone options on my iPhone.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Fan 2008 Avatar
Apple Fan 2008
40 months ago
Can't wait for AirPlay in hotels!
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
A
arobert3434
40 months ago
How about instead of all this fancy-schmancy guessing simply preserving your last airplay choice for more than 30 seconds or so if you pause the music? This has driven me crazy for years. A Mac will remember your selection until you change it, why can't iDevices do this?

Also in the missing-basics department, Music won't remember your play history across devices. Why do they make this fancy iCloud thing just to let each device be its own silo? It reminds me of the sad state of Books. Remembering the page across devices seems like the simplest possible cloud application. The Kindle app does it flawlessly. But it was always unreliable in Books, and then in iOS 16 rather than spending software development hours on stabilizing that, they invest in a hack-job UI rewrite AND apparently introduce a hard barrier so Books 16 devices and Books <=15 devices cannot sync the page together at all!

The emphasis on simple basic usability seems to have completely left Apple. If it weren't for so much legacy and existing convention in the software at this point they'd be worse than Windows.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
H
HVDynamo
40 months ago

Is Airplay still limited to 24/48? I'd like to see an updated Airplay that allows streaming the full bandwidth of high resolution files in Apple Music (24/192). Also, Apple, please fix the auto sample/bit rate changing in macOS, why does it work in iOS but not macOS??!!
There is literally no benefit to 24/192 outside of the mixing environment. 16/44.1 is enough to flawlessly reproduce any frequency in our hearing range.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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