AirPlay loudspeaker in TVOS 26: permanent operation finally allowed

Many owners of Apple’s Multimediabox reflect their sound on the loudspeaker of their television. It is often not particularly voluminous. It is easy to use Apple’s own HomePods (series 1, 2 and Mini) for Apple TV playback, but if you have an AirPlay speaker from another brand, this cannot be stabbed by default. Instead, you have to re -establish the connection regularly. With TVOS 26, which is expected in September, this should finally change: Apple then allows a “permanent connection to every loudspeaker”, as the manufacturer announced.

Only possible wirelessly

“Every” speaker is only half right, because because Airplay This has to be dominated, since Apple TV sets have been missing a direct audio output (except via HDMI) for years. However, there is now a large selection on the market, so that you are not forced to buy an Apple Smart Peaker for convenience reasons. In practice, the permanent connection in TVOS 26 looks like this according to testers of the current developer beta: You move to the system settings of the Apple TV and then select a “permanent loudspeaker”.

This setting no longer forgets TVOS 26, it will also be preserved through a restart. Why Apple only comes with such a function is unclear, but of course the company earns the most with its own speakers, which, as mentioned, have so far been the most comfortable coupling. The first tests have to show how stable the connection to the third-party air player is. The image of the Apple TV is of course adapted so that the image and sound fit together, i.e. the low airplay latency is compensated for.

More new features

TVOS 26 also brings other innovations. This includes call notifications directly on the television, a new look for the Facetime app including live captions (translation as a subtitle) in more languages, selection of the desired profile after the device and Apple Liquid Glass look from the other operating systems.

In addition, lyrics are translated on request and you can smell over the iPhone micro on karaoke songs. After all, Apple delivers a very useful new sign-in-API for TVOS apps, with which one should be able to register for services (such as streaming) without annoying manual password input.