AirPlay and AirPlay 2

UPDATE: Apple released a firmware update on August 28 that added AirPlay 2 support!

AirPlay 2 has been out for a few months now and it has generally been well received, but there’s one mystery left for Apple’s upgraded audio streaming feature: will AirPlay 2 support come to the AirPort Express? There’s both reason to be hopeful and skeptical…

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Back in May, Apple revealed the full list of third-party speakers slated to receive updates with AirPlay 2 support. Now, one of the first manufacturers has started rolling out updates to their line of audio accessories…

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Today is the day that many Sonos and Apple users have been waiting for! This morning, Sonos has launched AirPlay 2 support via a software update that brings HomeKit and Siri functionality. Follow along for how to get your Sonos speakers up and running with AirPlay 2.

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Great news for Sonos customers: AirPlay 2 has arrived. This makes compatible Sonos speakers the first third-party AirPlay 2 speakers to hit the market, and support is being added retroactively through a free software update.

This means you can use Sonos speakers to play audio from iTunes on the Mac and all iPhone and iPad apps including Music, TV, YouTube, and Netflix. Sonos speakers can also be used for multi-room audio playback with HomePod and Apple TV, and Siri can control Apple Music and Podcasts playback from iPhone, iPad, HomePod, or Apple TV.

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First unveiled earlier this month, Beam is the latest smart speaker and TV soundbar from wireless speaker maker Sonos. The compact TV soundbar promises hi-fi music playback and voice control through Alexa — all at an affordable price. Sonos Beam hits the market later next month, but we’ve been testing it for a few weeks ahead of its launch.

For the purpose of this review, Apple’s new AirPlay 2 wireless streaming feature wasn’t ready for testing — stay tuned for our full impressions next month when Sonos adds the feature. AirPlay 2 aside, Sonos Beam is a hit for bedrooms, apartments, or budget home theaters.

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Now that AirPlay 2 is out with iOS 11.4, we’re starting to learn more about when speaker makers will release support in their products. Libratone shared this week that two of its speakers will work with AirPlay 2 starting in September.

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AirPlay 2 has been out for a few weeks now after shipping a week before WWDC 2018 and almost a year after it was previewed at WWDC 2017.

In the places where AirPlay 2 works, the audio streaming feature is a notable upgrade over the original AirPlay feature — but there are also weird choices and clear opportunities for AirPlay 2 now that it’s available.

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Ikea teased a collaboration with Sonos back in December, but didn’t share any details of what to expect. It has now revealed that the plan is for a range of budget speakers which are compatible with both existing Sonos setups and Ikea’s Tradfri smart home devices …

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After first discussing AirPlay 2 last fall, Sonos has officially confirmed this morning that support for Apple’s streaming audio protocol will arrive via a free software update in July.

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Today is a very big day for HomePod owners, as Apple has released iOS 11.4, which includes the HomePod 11.4 update. HomePod 11.4 brings two major features to the HomePod for the very first time — AirPlay 2 with multi-room audio support, and stereo pairing for those that own more than one HomePod.

If you own a HomePod, be sure to check out our how-to tutorial that walks you step-by-step through the HomePod 11.4 update process, and then watch our breakdown of the update’s new features.
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Following the release of iOS 11.4 earlier today, Apple has updated its HomeKit website to acknowledge the availability of AirPlay 2, as well as to highlight upcoming third-party speakers that will support AirPlay 2…

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tvOS 11.4 for Apple TV 4 and Apple TV 4K is now available after a few weeks of developer and public beta testing. The latest software update supports AirPlay 2 alongside iOS 11.4 which was also released today.

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Just days before iOS 12 is unveiled to the public, Apple is fulfilling two promises made a year ago in iOS 11. First announced earlier this morning, iOS 11.4 is now available for iPhone and iPad. The new update includes AirPlay 2, HomePod stereo pairing, Messages in iCloud, and more.

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Apple is releasing the first major software update for HomePod — its high fidelity smart speaker that launched earlier this year. The HomePod famously launched without AirPlay 2’s multi-room audio support or stereo pairing. With today’s launch of iOS 11.4, HomePod finally gains these features.

Watch as we show you how to update HomePod using the 11.4 software update.
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Introduced back in January at CES 2018, First Alert has opened preorders for its latest offering in its Onelink smoke alarm/carbon monoxide family today, Safe & Sound. In addition to the traditional smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and HomeKit support, this new product offers an Alexa-enabled smart speaker and is said to eventually bring AirPlay 2 connectivity.

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While AirPlay 2 still hasn’t shipped, the feature is shaping up to be quite impressive in recent betas. Most notable is the ability to control audio playback on one device from Siri on another device, a feature we wrote about last fall that recently started working in beta…

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Two weeks after the original developer beta, Apple has released iOS 11.4 beta 2 for testing. iOS 11.4 includes unreleased features like AirPlay 2 and Messages on iCloud.  We’ll dig in to the new version and detail changes below.

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The first iOS 11.4 beta was seeded to developers earlier this afternoon, and it brings back several features that were found in previous betas. Watch our hands-on video walkthrough inside for a brief look at what’s included.
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While it’s perfectly reasonable to have an Apple TV and a HomePod in the same room, Apple hasn’t optimized parts of its software to handle this very well. For example, if you name both your Apple TV and HomePod ‘Kitchen’ as the software will suggest, the result is the second device appending a (2) to the device name.

That’s clunky but it works. The trickier issue this creates is how AirPlaying system audio from macOS works. iOS and iTunes provide device icons to distinguish between Apple TVs and HomePods, but the system audio menu omits these which makes naming devices by room even more confusing.

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