Airplay how does it work?

Golf1.6 · 11 Sep 2014 at 21:05

Just curious as to how airplay works.

Specifically referring to airplay wirelessly. E.g. sending iPad screen onto apple tv to display to a screen.

Does it just use the wifi to communicate with each other and identify each others device securely and then just transmit the data over p2p. Or does the iPad send data to the wifi device which then transmits data to the apple tv?

Golf1.6 · 11 Sep 2014 at 21:57

ok, i guess it needs a router to be the gateway between the devices and not peer to peer.

Just found out you can use a mifi device to do this! WOW.

shiver · 12 Sep 2014 at 09:13

With iOS 8 / new Apple TV software it's rumoured to work Ad-Hoc too

Caged · 13 Sep 2014 at 15:37

Not rumoured, confirmed:

https://www.apple.com/uk/ios/whats-new/enterprise/ said:
Peer-to-peer AirPlay discovery and playback.
With iOS 8, you can wirelessly connect iPad, iPhone or iPod touch to Apple TV without first connecting to the organisation’s network. Which means you can present or share your work even if you’re offline or the organisation has a complex network.

There are advantages to integrating the devices properly, such as the only Wi-Fi device needing to be the laptop or iPad while the Apple TV can be on a secured wired network. But lots of enterprise IT departments hate change and don't like doing work, so this is a good feature.