Spotify reassures it’s working on adding AirPlay 2 streaming support on iOS

Spotify has cleared up confusion around AirPlay 2 support for its iOS app. Last week, a representative from Spotify said that it wasn’t possible to add AirPlay 2 streaming support to Spotify for the foreseeable future due to audio driver compatibility issues. Now the company says it was a bit premature on its part to say that.

In a forum post, Spotify has clarified that the iOS app will add support for AirPlay 2 after all (via Engadget). It’s still not saying when we should expect the feature to become available, though. However, this confirmation provides much-needed clarity on the earlier statement, which made it look like Spotify had put the feature on indefinite hold.

A Spotify spokesperson provided the following statement to The Verge:

A post on one of Spotify’s Community pages contained incomplete information regarding our plans for AirPlay2. Spotify will support AirPlay2 and we’re working to make that a reality.

AirPlay 2 is the latest iteration of Apple’s proprietary wireless protocol. Think of it as a Google Cast but for Apple devices. AirPlay 2 was unveiled alongside iOS 11 at Apple’s WWDC event in 2017. The new version is a big step up over the original protocol, offering lower latency, multi-room support, streaming to stereo speakers, and Siri integration.

iPhone users have been requesting Spotify to add support for AirPlay 2 streaming for years — currently, the app only supports the old AirPlay protocol. As per Apple’s official documentation, adding support for AirPlay 2 in an app is a four-step process, requiring the app to set a flag, adding an AirPlay picker, respond to play/pause, and adopting a playback API to take advantage of enhanced buffering. However, as developer Macro Arment points out, it’s the fourth step, adding a new API to support fast streaming, that’s the main roadblock as Apple has provided very little documentation around that.

…and that new API:

– is barely documented

– has no public sample code

– is full of major gotchas

– can’t change speeds seamlessly

– doesn’t provide precise timing

– requires much more complex logic

– is less efficient, which can cause background CPU-overage terminations

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) August 6, 2021

As mentioned above, Spotify hasn’t provided ETA on when we should expect AirPlay 2 streaming support to arrive on the Spotify iOS app. For now, all we know is that the company is “working to make [the AirPlay 2 feature] a reality.”

The post Spotify reassures it’s working on adding AirPlay 2 streaming support on iOS appeared first on xda-developers.

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