iOS AirPlay Mirroring: A Game Changer

ByMike Moffit

With the release of iOS 5, Apple has raised the bar in digital entertainment once again. iOS 5 supports a feature called AirPlay Mirroring. AirPlay Mirroring allows you to wirelessly mirror your iOS device onto your television via Apple TV. This is an amazing new way to interact with the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, as it allows you to take advantage of a big screen using a small mobile device. All you need to do to activate it is double-tap your home button, swipe to the right to access the multitasking bar, tap on the AirPlay icon, select your Apple TV and flip the switch to mirroring. After that, what you see on your iDevice’s screen will be on your TV as well.

One of the major benefits of AirPlay Mirroring is gaming. The iOS game market is one of the largest mobile gaming markets due to the fact that there are so many people who own the devices. With the ability to share to a larger screen wirelessly, what is going to change is that more people are going to start to use their TVs as the screen for their gaming on iOS devices. This allows for developers to start making the apps work as a controller, while everything is done on the big screen. Some apps already support this, such as Real Racing 2 HD.

As someone who is into mobile gaming on iPad, I know I like this new feature very much. It works great for all kinds of uses. My Apple TV is hooked up to a 27” ViewSonic HD display and my stereo. Streaming wirelessly to the Apple TV, I get full HD versions of games right on the screen.

This has many more uses than just gaming though: it allows you to stream whatever you are doing wirelessly. Say you are working on an important file for work and want to see it on a big screen instead of working on the iPad screen directly. Before AirPlay Mirroring this meant you needed to connect your iPad to the television with an HDMI cable in order to mirror anything. Now mirroring is all wireless and available at the double-tap of the home button.

This new feature is one of the many reasons that iOS 5 is the world’s best mobile operating system. Apple is always striving to be the best, and with this and all the other amazing new features of iOS 5, it seems as if they have done it with this release.

Similar Posts

  • The iPod is so wrong! It's so stupid!*

    From a comment on the MacRumors message board, the day the original 5GB iPod was released. Anticipation is building for great new Mac…

  • Fine Art and the iPad

    British artist David Hockney, known for his contributions to the Pop Art movement of the 1960’s has found a new medium for creating as well as displaying his creations: the Apple iPad. Hockney, aged 73, began making doodles on his iPhone in 2008 using the application Brushes http://www.brushesapp.com/ and began emailing them to a small group of friends. By the end of 2009 he had created around 1000 images, including a series of paintings of the rising sun that he made without leaving his bed. Hockney praised the convenience of using a mobile device to create art:

    “It’s always there in my pocket, there’s no thrashing about, scrambling for the right color. One can set to work immediately, there’s this wonderful impromptu quality, this freshness, to the activity; and when it’s over, best of all, there’s no mess, no clean-up. You just turn off the machine. Or, even better, you hit Send, and your little cohort of friends around the world gets to experience a similar immediacy. There’s something, finally, very intimate about the whole process.”

    With the release of the iPad this year the artist was provided with a larger canvas to work on, which he says “takes it to a new level.” The iPad’s 9.7 inch screen allowed Hockney to create even more intricate paintings. The culmination of his experiments in this new medium is his current exhibition in Paris called Fleurs Fraiches (Fresh Flowers). http://www.fondation-pb-ysl.net/fr/Accueil-Fondation-Pierre-Berge-Yves-Saint-Laurent-471.html Perhaps the most interesting thing about this show is that the images were not only created on the iPhone and iPad, but they are being displayed on them as well. This allows the viewers to see the images as the artist intended, rather than rendering them onto paper or using a television or projector. Hockney also uses the iPad to periodically change the images displayed, allowing him to refresh the flowers.

    Another element of this story that I love is how Hockney carries his iPad around. His coats already had large pockets on the inside that he formerly used to carry drawing pads around. These have been repurposed to carry around his new favorite drawing tool: the Apple iPad.

    Come into one of our retail locations http://www.smalldog.com/retail and give the iPad a test run. Maybe you can be the next Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, or David Hockney!

  • The Macintosh Community

    One of the benifits of working here is meeting other long-standing members of the Macintosh community. Today I had a great phone conversation…

  • Watch the Olympics Online!

    It’s time for the Winter Olympics, and once again, those who love to watch the action but don’t have a TV will look…

  • Incipio iPhone Feather Case Review

    Brief review of the Incipio iPhone Feather case. The Feather measures less than 1mm thin, with a soft touch matte finish and includes…