AirPlay and AirPlay 2

It’s been almost two years since Apple announced that Beats was making an AirPlay 2 speaker. The announcement was brief so you might have missed it — a few minutes before the big HomePod preview — but it was on stage at an Apple event.

“All of these speaker makers have announced upcoming support for AirPlay 2,” Craig Federighi declared on stage in front of a slide that included Beats and Bose logos among a dozen other brands. Several AirPlay 2 speakers have since debuted on the market, but not one from the Apple-owned Beats.

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Update 2/11/2019: Samsung now says its 2019 QLED TVs are now available to purchase or pre-order. The upcoming iTunes app and AirPlay 2 feature will be available in a future update to compatible 2019 and 2018 TVs.

Apple and Samsung today announced a partnership to put iTunes TV shows and movies onto Samsung Smart TVs from the spring. The iTunes video content will be exposed through a special app that sits alongside existing apps like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube.

The TVs will also become AirPlay 2 receivers, marking the first official AirPlay integration for third parties. The features will launch on 2019 Samsung Smart TVs and most 2018 Samsung Smart TVs through a software update.

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Perhaps one of the most surprising announcements during CES week this year was unrelated to the event entirely. Days after the new year, Apple announced it would begin integrating AirPlay 2 support with third-party television manufactures, including Samsung, Sony and more.
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At the beginning of every school year, each person on our staff has to put together three personal goals for the year. The goals need to be a way for you to stretch yourself professionally and accomplish certain tasks. One of the projects I put on my goals for this year was to overhaul our classroom AV setup. Right now, teachers have projectors on portable carts. Our building is 80+ years old (full of concrete), so running ceiling mounted projectors is a labor-intensive project as additional power outlets need to be installed for each classroom. I also then have to consider the cost of projector maintenance, running AV cables back to the proper location, and difficulty of upgrades in the future.

I know some schools have been using Apple TVs, but I’ve been hesitant because it always felt like complete overkill because we’d just use it for AirPlay functionality in the classroom. When you figure in the cost of an Apple TV ($149), it adds significant cost to the overall setup. Now, after reading the Apple news from CES, my plans for the future have changed.
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VLC, the popular open source video and audio client, may be surpassing 3 billion downloads soon. VLC also looks to be supporting AirPlay on Android in a future update. 
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Following similar announcements from Samsung, LG, and Vizio, Sony announced this evening that it will add support for AirPlay and HomeKit to select TV models. Sony’s announcement is especially surprising as Sony uses Android TV to power its televisions.

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Samsung was the first manufacturer to announce AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support coming to its TVs yesterday. Since then Vizio also shared that built-in support for Apple’s ecosystem will be arriving with its SmartCast TVs this year. Now, LG has confirmed its plans to integrate AirPlay 2 and HomeKit with its televisions at CES 2019.

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The trend of TV manufacturers integrating AirPlay 2 continues today at CES 2019. Vizio has announced that it is adding AirPlay 2 and HomeKit integration to its existing SmartCast TV platform. Vizio has also unveiled its latest 4K TV updates for 2019.

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Following the Samsung Smart TV announcement earlier today (and now Vizio), Apple has updated its AirPlay page to give a bit more detail on the newly-unveiled AirPlay 2 integration with television sets. Apple says AirPlay 2 will be available on TVs by leading manufacturers, suggesting more manufacturers beyond Samsung will be announcing their support.

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Apple has expanded its list of HomeKit categories with a new entry: AirPlay 2 receivers. We’ve seen upcoming and currently available AirPlay 2 speakers including HomePod, Sonos, and Libratone on Apple’s HomeKit accessory list since Apple’s wireless audio streaming solution debuted earlier this year. The addition of AirPlay 2 receivers adds a new way to control audio with HomeKit, and receiver maker Denon is owning the category for now.

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Libratone announced over the summer that two of its portable speakers would work with AirPlay 2 this year. Starting today, Libratone AirPlay 2 support is now available. Libratone ZIPP and ZIPP mini users can update their speakers through the Libratone iOS app to add AirPlay 2 support:

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