Just What Is Airplay 2?

Apple’s evolving media streaming format

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Sonos launched its multiroom audio solution in 2002, utilising a circle controller suspiciously similar to that of apple’s crazy-popular iPod. Rather than releasing its team of legal attack dogs, Apple responded in kind with the absolutely Sonos-esque AirTunes, released alongside iOS 4 in 2004. This enabled the sending of audio from iTunes to a speaker-connected AirPort Express, though AirTunes was, given the benefit of hindsight, a fairly limited protocol; it wasn’t until 2010, when Apple upped its abilities to go beyond audio streaming, that the rebranded AirPlay came into its own.

It’s a very easy system to understand: a sender device (an iPhone or iPad, a Mac or Apple TV) plays some media, and a receiver device (a speaker, a TV, or anything else with AirPlay capabilities) plays that media back. Pretty basic. Some devices, notably the Apple TV, can pull double duty, acting both as a sender and a receiver, and there’s a certain level of two-way communication between all but the dumbest device and your media source, since on-board controls will allow you to pause, tweak the volume, skip tracks et al. Everything in the chain needs to be Wi-Fi connected, although if you run a guest network alongside your main SSID AirPlay is smart enough to traverse the two.