AirPort Express will apparently gain AirPlay 2 speaker support
Developers and public beta testers who installed the iOS 11.4 beta are noticing that Apple’s AirPort Express wireless base station is showing up in the Home app as AirPlay 2 speakers.
According to Reddit, AirPort Express is available from the Add Accessory section of the Home app, but all it does is sit there. If you have an AirPorT Express, enable AirPlay functionality in the AirPort Utility app on your Mac and it’ll pop up in the Home app.
Of course, you cannot actually add your Express as a wireless AirPlay 2 speaker to the Home app because Apple has yet to release a matching AirPort firmware that would add AirPlay 2 compatibility to the Express, but it should show up as a compatible accessory.
Another Reddit user found the file named “airport_home.pdf” in the Home app files that provides the icon specifically for AirPort Express. While the icon itself depicts Apple TV, the real clue is the file name.
My house is full of AirPort Express devices so I’m very much looking forward to inexpensive multi-room audio when iOS 11.4 releases for public consumption. If you’re thinking the same, buy those Expresses now before they go out of stock.
Only the second-generation Airport Express model shows up in the Home app with iOS 11.4 beta 1 when you try to add an accessory. People have been unable to add the first-generation AirPort Express model to the Home app (it just hangs and never actually adds it to a HomeKit setup), but that’s something Apple might change in subsequent betas.
Just don’t hold your breath for AirPlay 2 support for the AirPort Time Capsule base station since it doesn’t have a built-in headphone jack or any kind of audio output. No, there’s no audio component in the Airport Extreme base station either.
The Express is an excellent little Wi-Fi router that doubles as an AirPlay speaker and works as a Wi-Fi extender. With its 3.5mm audio out port or optical audio via TOSLINK, you can easily hook it up to your existing home theater setup or plug it directly to speakers.
AirPlay 2 brings multi-room and multi-device control. With AirPlay 2, you can control audio playback and adjust volume across multiple AirPlay devices at once right from the Control Center on your iPhone or iPad, iTunes or the AirPlay menu on Apple TV.
Thanks to AirPlay 2, Apple TV also appears in the Home app.
Subscribe to iDownloadBlog on YouTube
Both iOS 11.4 and tvOS 11.4 betas have brought back a few major features that got removed from earlier iOS betas, including Messages in iCloud, AirPlay 2, HomePod stereo pairing and more.
Source link: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/04/04/airport-express-will-apparently-gain-airplay-2-speaker-support/
Leave a Reply