How to Use AirPlay on iPhone and iPad and Mirroring to Apple TV, PC, and Mac

 

How to Use AirPlay on iPhone and iPad and Mirroring to Apple TV, PC, and Mac

There are many reasons may make you seek to display your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch content on a big screen, or just to make their audio louder. 
With Airplay feature you can do that seamlessly, which enable you to stream your video, photos, or music from your iOS device to an Apple TV, AirPort Express, or compatible speakers. 

AirPlay Mirroring Requirements

To Airplay your iPhone or iPad content supposedly on an Apple TV you must have:

1.  iPhone 4 or later, iPad 2 or later, iPod touch (5 generation) Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation.)
2. Your iOS device and Apple TV should be on the same Wi-Fi network. 

So you could watch a video and play a game on a bigger display, web browsing, teach or demonstrate iOS apps, look at picture slideshows, or anything else of your interests.

How to Use AirPlay in iPhone or iPad

• From your Home Screen swipe up from the bottom of your iOS device to bring up Control Center. 

• From Control Center in Your iPhone or iPad swipe horizontally to get the Now Playing screen.

• From the Now Playing screen tap the  button to find available Airplay devices, then select the device that you want to Airplay. 

How to mirror an iPhone or iPad to an Apple TV

To mirror exactly what’s on your iPhone or iPad to your HDTV over to an Apple TV, in this case, you need to enable Airplay Mirroring feature:

• Again give rise to Control Center but this time just from here tap Airplay Mirroring icon.

• From the list Select Your Apple TV or any other enabled Airplay Mirroring receiver you would like to use. If an Airplay passcode popped up on your TV screen then just enter the passcode on your iPhone or iPad.

• Once the AirPlay Mirroring is enabled, your iOS device screen will be mirrored on your Apple TV. I would like to mention that any media player has an Airplay Mirroring icon  beside his playback you could simply use it since Airplay Mirroring is enabled on your iOS device.

• If “AirPlay” icon is not visible in Control Center or you see a"Looking for Apple TV" message be sure that the Apple TV is online and active and on the same Wi-Fi network. To check the Wi-Fi network on your Apple TV: Settings > Network (4th generation); Settings > General> Network (2nd or 3rd generation). To enable AirPlay on Apple TV: Settings > AirPlay.

• Your TV will use your iPhone dimensions, to fill your TV screen with mirrored device change its aspect ratio or zoom settings. 

AirPlay issues and troubles

If you are facing some issues with AirPay often will be linked to the Wi-Fi network, so please make sure the settings of the network in your iOS device and the gadgets attached to it are perfect. Apple always recommends updating your software devices to the last version. The first step you have to do if you face a problem and you are sure that the settings on your iOS device and the receiver are perfect reboot your device if the trouble still there try to unplug the power cord of your router, after a moment, plug it up again. Apple Support has a page dedicated to Airplay issues.

One other common problem is if you find only the audio is streaming over without the screen display showing up on the Apple TV, you probably simply forgot to toggle the “Mirroring” option ON from the Control Center, so enable it as described above.

How to turn Off AirPlay Mirroring in your iPhone or iPad

AirPlay will stay on until you turn it off, to do that from Control Center again, tap on the ‘AirPlay’ button.

Select the device name from the list, and tap "Done" to prevent both video and audio AirpLay and the mirrored stream instantly.

If you just switched the "Mirror" option to off, the display will turn off while keeping the AirPlay audio stream active so you have to tap the device name to turn off the entire feature.

AirPlay in Peer-to-peer 

Apple has allowed in iOS 8 to use peer-to-peer connectivity with Airplay, theoretically streaming an iPhone or iPad content to an Apple TV will be much easier so you don't need to connect to a shared Wi-Fi network --may be a complicated and not safe one--, like if you are in a hotel, classroom, meeting room...

With iOS 8, you can wirelessly connect iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to Apple TV without first connecting to the organization's network. Which means you can present or share your work even if you're offline or the organization has a complex network.

I would like to mention that many users experienced issues on peer-to-peer connectivity like interrupting and lags, the video streaming could not mirroring at all. You have to know that peer-to-peer connectivity depends on Bluetooth, thus the coverage area will be short and how the Bluetooth's chip in Apple devices is capable of dealing with huge bandwidth like video's files and some barriers and obstacles. Any way to enable peer to peer connection on your Apple TV:   

• Forget your Wi-Fi network on your iOS device and Apple TV.

• Make sure Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are turned ON for both Apple TV and iOS device(even are not connected to any network.)

• Restart your iPhone or iPad and Apple TV, now use Control Center on your iPhone or iPad to Airplay your content.

How to mirror iPhone or iPad to a PC or Mac

You can also use Airplay mirroring with third-party apps that run on MacOS, Linux, or Windows, these apps will present your PC or Mac as an Airplay receiver, consequently, after launching the app on your computer, you will see the name of this app by default "most often" available with Airplay devices list, select it to mirror you iPhone or iPad to that machine. As usual with Airplay, your devices must be on the same Wi-Fi network.

There is a bunch of apps offers this service with the possibility of recording this content, streaming to many devices and other features, choose what is appropriate for you requirements, most of them offer trial editions and demos.

• Reflector
• AirServer
• X-Mirage
• mirroring360

How to mirror iPhone or iPad to a PC or Mac free

Here is a free option to mirror your iPhone or iPad content to your Windows PC or Mac, the LoneLyScreen app provides you that, during the installation, you might get a notification tells you that some features will be blocked if your Operating System Firewall is enabled, so you have to allow the app to override your Firewall.

credit:howtogeek

Mirror your iPhone and iPad content by using Apple adapters 

You could also mirror your iPhone or iPad content to a TV, projector, computer monitor or other external displays in up to 1080p HD that by connecting your iOS device with either Digital AV or VGA adapter --are also available for devices with 30-pin Dock connectors.--.

To mirror content from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch on a secondary display, you need the correct adapter. To connect wirelessly,use AirPlay.

Lightning Digital AV Adapter has HDMI port, which means audio signals are carrying with video simultaneously, while that not applied on the Lightning to VGA Adapter so in this case, you need to connect headset jack on your secondary display. 

Lightning Digital AV Adapter

Most of these adapters have an extra Lightning port or 30-pin Dock connector, that allows you to charge your device while streaming to other display. 

Also if you have a Chromchast dongle or Amazone Fire TV stick you could mirror you iPhone content over it by using third-party apps and tricks.

Record your iPhone and iPad content free

If want to capture your iPhone or iPad content for some reason you could do that without any third-party app or these much costs Apple adapter accessories. If you have a Mac just plug your iOS device via USB into it consequently, it will run as camera and by the help of QuickTime, you can record what to do on your iPhone or iPad.

Capture app footage from the device using QuickTime Player on OS X. Simply connect an iOS device to a Mac using the Lightning connector or connect to an Apple TV to a Mac using a USB-C to USB cable, and it will be automatically available as a video camera. You  can capture anything you’re doing on-screen directly to your Mac using QuickTime Player.

As you see there is more than one option to mirror your iPhone or iPad to a big display but we have focused in this post on Airplay we could cover other option with available choices in the future.

Data & images source: Apple Support

updated on April 25th, 2017.


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