Apple’s AirPlay, a new feature arriving with today’s release of iOS 4.2 , marks a major move into a (mercifully) wireless future, beaming music, videos, and photos to speakers and screens everywhere your home. Here’s why it’s so damn cool.

What Is AirPlay?

AirPlay is Apple’s way of letting you play your music and videos on bigger and better speakers and screens around your place, without plugging anything in. It’s basically a new and improved version of AirTunes, Apple’s protocol for streaming music from iTunes to AirPort Express-connected speakers, but AirPlay expands things on several fronts: the kind of media that you would be able to stream (videos and photos, along with music); the kinds of devices that could stream that media (iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches) and the places to which that media might possibly be streamed (Apple TVs and compatible third-party hardware, along with AirPort Expresseses).

How Will I exploit It?

As anyone who has an Airport Express will attest, having the ability to beam media around the house wirelessly is awesome. And while AirPlay is, in essence, little more than Apple’s own proprietary version of DLNA, hence ” Apple’s own version” signifies that AirPlay is seamlessly stitched into the software of Apple’s products and works in ways that DLNA can’t. Here’s how you’ll use it.

• To play music from your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch over your AirPort Express-connected speakers.
It is a big one. Apple sells the AirPort Express for $100. Not too pricey but not all that cheap. I just bought a second, refurbished Express on eBay for $45. That’s cheap-cheap enough, in the event you’re willing to buy them second-hand, to have wireless music right through your own home. Like even within the bathroom and stuff. Sweet.

Up previously, Apple’s Remote app was pretty good for controlling that wireless music goodness from iPhones and iPads, nevertheless it required your main Mac to be turned on, serving music via iTunes somewhere within the house. With AirPlay, you’re in a position to stream music directly from your iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Take out your iPod ears once you’re walking into your apartment and in place of stopping the song set it to greet you through your lounge speakers as you walk inside the door. Yes…entrance music.

• To send videos from your iPhone or iPad on your Apple TV-connected television.
The second-gen Apple TV, as Apple described it, seemed pretty lame. Movie rentals are neat (maybe?), but even for a relatively cheap $99 it gave the impression of this thing didn’t really do anything. Until we discovered about AirPlay. Not only can the Apple TV receive whatever videos you’ve bought from iTunes or managed to wrangle into your iPad or iPhone’s fussy Video app, it is going to play any video that plays through iOS’s native video player, including YouTubes, Vimeos, Vevos, and whatever else.

Now, I know I will play YouTube videos directly on my TV through Panasonic VIeraCast, and I believe i’ll decide the way to pipe them in through my XBox, but I never do! Because it’s a pain inside the ass! And while it could possibly seem decadent (moreso, even, than $45 second-hand AirPort poop-tunes), I feel you can make a case for AppleTV solely as a $99 big screen Vimeo watcher. Sure, the YouTube cat video pantheon won’t really want the TV treatment, but I find myself watching beautifully-produced, longer-than-bite-sized stuff on sites like Vimeo on a regular basis. To me, short documentaries like this and music videos like this are much more deserving of my big screen real estate than whatever Kardashian hijinks E! happens to be showing.

• Some very neat things in between.
What’s very cool about AirPlay (and a touch surprising, considering the sometimes-restrictive tendencies of the company behind it) is that it works in some useful but not-so-obvious ways you may not initially consider. Say you’re in bed watching a video to your iPad. You need to use AirPlay to stream just the audio on your Airport Express-connected stereo, affording you some extra boom over the iPad’s tinny speakers but keeping the video right up near to your face to your tablet.

AirPlay Is Gonna Be Everywhere

While AirPort Express and Apple TV are a beautiful affordable means to get your current speakers and screens AirPlay ready, Apple’s also spread out AirPlay to third-party hardware, making way for stereos and film frames and so on can receive media from your iPhone right out of the box.

Apple’s already announced partnerships with companies like Denon, Marantz, Bowers & Wilkins, JBL, and iHome to create AirPlay-friendly gear, and you may bet that countless other companies will follow. These products will range from the swanky, expensive receiver in your house theater to the cheap iPod speakers you acquire at the Apple Store, and they’ll function a twin of normal-you’ll just happen so as to send music to them wirelessly, too.

What’s For AirPlay?

With AirPlay, Apple’s taking a large step into a rad future, one within which music and videos and photos exist on mobile devices but might be enjoyed through better speakers and larger screens. But we’re not all of the way there in any way.

OS X is one weak link. Though iTunes is AirPlay-equipped, meaning one could send music and video for your iTunes library to AirPlay devices, I will be able to’t remember the last time I watched a video through iTunes. That implies that in your Mac, YouTube, Vimeo, and anything are still imprisoned within the browser. Hopefully this can change with the subsequent version of OS X.

The idea of AirPlay outside of your home can be still an issue mark. Joel looked forward to the likelihood of effortlessly throwing photos from your iPhone onto your friend’s Apple TV, though it’s unclear exactly how easy it is going to be to accomplish that. And needless to say there’s still the undeniable fact that amidst all this wireless nirvana, the media still has to exist to your iPad or iPhone, synced with that pesky USB tether. So there’s still that to go looking forward to, the day when the entire music you’re listening to and the videos you’re watching, whether they’re on the web, your Mac, your phone or your tablet, could be beamed around via AirPlay. But I’m pretty damn taken with what we’ve got within the meantime.

Screenshot credit: Electric Nicholas

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This post is tagged: airport express, party hardware, proprietary version, streaming music, wireless future