Roku Adding Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit
Roku today announced that AirPlay 2 and HomeKit will be rolling out to select 4K TVs and devices as part of a free software update later this year.
AirPlay 2 will enable users to stream videos, music, podcasts, and more directly from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac to a compatible Roku smart TV, with no Apple TV box necessary. And with HomeKit support, users can easily control the TV’s power, volume, source, and more using Siri or the Home app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Good news. I wonder whether Fire TV will get built-in AirPlay support next.
Previously:
Update (2020-10-09): Daniel Rubino:
Apple TV is coming to Xbox. Explains why Apple was looking to hire UWP devs last year.
The lack of Apple TV+ availability on Android is certainly puzzling in light of Apple’s services focus shift, particularly when contrasted with their Music approach (and, indeed, their TV+ apps for web, Microsoft, Roku, Amazon, Samsung, LG and VIZIO – everyone except Google).
4 Comments RSS · Twitter
As a Roku owner this is really welcome. There are a couple good "casting apps" in the AppStore that we use at home, but having it "native" in the Roku app is really quite welcome. If my Roku pucks work with HomeKit, so much the better.
My Roku TV (on which I never use the Roku features) has a bizarre HDMI-CEC implementation with a mandatory 5 second delay every time it gets commanded to turn on before it'll actually switch to the Apple TV. Hoping this update will let me automate this by changing the source with HomeKit instead. The LG TV I've used makes use of HDMI-CEC and HomeKit mutually exclusive though, so who knows…
I fell like I am missing something in this (exciting) news: what makes it possible now that was not possible before? Is that an official support? Is that all based on reverse engineering? I am hoping it comes to Fire TV as well, and that it would be more reliable than the Fire TV 3rd party app that enables it...
