Apple TV may not have native apps yet, but AirPlay provides a workaround to run apps on your TV ? so long as those apps involve streaming video or audio.
Ars Technica?s Jacqui Cheng wasn?t able to try out video streaming to the Apple TV in full ? that won?t be possible until iOS 4.2 ships in November ? but in her extended review, she did unearth two important bits about AirPlay:
- With iOS 4.1, you can already easily stream audio to the Apple TV, including audio from movie files;
- With iOS 4.2, every iOS app using Apple?s standard audio and video profiles can stream to Apple TV. Not just videos in your iTunes library.
Some of these applications are no-brainers, like Netflix and YouTube. Since both apps run natively on Apple TV anyway, this might appear redundant; still, it?s nice to be able to seamlessly throw video from your phone to your TV in the middle of watching something, without having to start over and search for the same video again.
Other iOS apps add content that Apple TV doesn?t have. Ars Technica mentions sports applications like MLB At-Bat and local internet radio. You might be able to preview a movie you?re editing in the iPad?s iMovie mobile app on the big screen without plugging in.
Of course, applications that either don?t want their content streamed to Apple TV (like Hulu, perhaps) or don?t want to put in the work to reformat their video into H.264 will be left out ? just keep your video and audio in a format that can?t be streamed. For others, there?s nothing else they have to do on the software or hardware side to make their applications AirPlay-compatible.
That prospect could be exciting for both developers and users ? at least until full-fledged iOS apps for Apple TV come along. Or Google TV?s apps sweep through and steal the whole show.
YouTube video streaming over AirPlay; Image via Ars Technica
Ars reviews the Apple TV 2.0: little, black, different [Ars Technica]
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