The one new feature that gets most people excited about iOS 4.2 is AirPlay. With new support features and media streaming functionality, Apple AirPlay may just change the way you consume your music and video on a daily basis.
Music and Video streaming is the most exciting part of AirPlay, but just how does it work? It is actually very easy to set up, and requires only two essential pieces of kit. You will need an iDevice that runs iOS 4.2, such as an Apple iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch; and a hardware media player such as an AirPort Express, AirPlay speakers, v2 Apple TV, or standard Bluetooth audio device.
In their usual user-friendly fashion, Apple have taken care of control and infrastructure between devices, and a new rectangular symbol pops up on the software side when using any AirPlay-ready application. Once you tap the icon a menu will pop up which lists your available hardware devices, allowing you to choose where to send your music or video – cool.
AirPlay is set up to run as a background process, so you can easily switch away from the media player in question and use your device for other things. If your iDevice happens to be locked, you can even control the volume using the standard volume keys and keep the device sleeping.
There is one major bug that has been found with AirPlay, which occurs when streaming media in the background and playing a game or something that also has an audio output. The audio from the game lags behind the visuals in an inconsistent fashion, which may be due to certain apps that are not yet iOS 4.2 compatible.
Overall, Apple AirPlay is a very cool system that acts as an simple multi-room audio setup without the need for a computer. It is likely to be seen on more third-party audio systems and components in the future, and probably also copied by other handset and tablet manufacturers as well.
0 comments:
Post a Comment