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iOS 11.4 Launches Today With AirPlay 2 and Messages in iCloud, HomePod Gets Multi-Room Audio, Stereo Pairing

ipedro said:
AirPlay 2 will allow you to AirPlay directly to your Sonos, without the Sonos app. AirPlay 2 is also significantly faster, eliminating the lag that we’re used to. Currently, when selecting an AirPlay speaker, it’ll take a couple of seconds for it to start playing. With AirPlay 2, it’s virtually instant. AirPlay 2 will also put your AirPlay speakers (including your AppleTVs) inside the Home app to be controlled as HomeKit devices. Finally, AirPlay2 allows you to play to multiple speakers at once, rather than just one at a time. They can be p,aging the same song or different songs and you can control all of your speakers from your iPhone.
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Being able to play from the Apple Music app is a definite plus, because trying to use Apple Music from Sonos' app has been such a pain I switched to Spotify because you could play through Spotify's app rather than Sonos. Thanks!


drewyboy said:
Honestly, it depends on your use. For mine, I'm probably never using Airplay 2 once Apple brings on 3rd party support in a few weeks with the likes of Sonos. Your iPhone is required since that is the device that is actually sending the audio stream to the speaker.

For me, Airplay is useless because I use my speakers for streaming music and Sono's already has it built in to stream directly from the source rather than your phone. I will be getting a Playbar, once the new ones are released, so that any content played through my TV is streamed to my Sonos speakers. This is one area that I refuse to be locked down and limited in Apple's products.
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Yeah, the features I've seen seems like it stuff I could already do through the Sonos or Spotify app. Being able to do it from Apple Music and speed increase seems like the only added benefit, a nice one too I should add...also podcasts would be a big benefit for me. Hate having to use the Sonos app for podcasts


jsmith189 said:
It'll mean you won't have to use the Sonos app, for one. You can use the native Music app and just select it as a source as you would AirPods or any other Bluetooth device. Also, if you have a HomePod (I have a mixture of HomePod/Sonos speakers), you can choose both HomePod and Sonos speakers to play to, again directly from the Music app.

Assuming this will also somehow apply to Siri (on HomePod) - asking her to play a song on multiple speakers.

Having said that, this will unfortunately depend on what Sonos device/s you have. Sonos have confirmed that it's not coming to all of their products, I believe only the Play:5 and One?
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I have a Play:5 and a Connect that I use on my home theatre. Thought I read somewhere as long as you have one Sonos speaker that is compatible with Airplay 2 then it'll work with them all. I could be wrong
 
So with Airplay 2 I will be able to: Send youtube audio (or any other audio) from either my iPhone 8 or Macbook to my Apple TV 4K (hooked to my home theater)and then also to my Sonos One, which will also then allow my Sonos Play:1s to be playing that audio too, right? This is great because for Sonos owners it means not having to buy their own $300 device to use your own speakers to play Sonos audio.
 
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Crzyrio said:
This to me means that airpower is going to be delayed even further, unless 11.4 already contains code to manage airpower. But I'd imagine someone would have found traces of it in that case
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AirPower hasn’t been delayed yet, it’s only scheduled for 2018. Still 7 more month to go.
 
Stereo working on a pair of HPs. You've got to go to one of the speakers to pair them for stereo (in Home App). The update of HPs had an option to install on all of them when just updating one. Playing a few obligatory tunes like Hotel California, some Beatles, Taylor Swift, all sounding great in stereo.
 
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DarwinOSX said:
It works fine with my Synology 2600ac. What router do you have?
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Tried with:

NetGear R6700
NetGear N600
ASUS AC3200
NetGear AC2600
Linksys WRT300N

Works With:

Airport Extreme



It is completely random. I have talked with people with some of the above routers that failed for me but works for them, loaded their configs, etc. Apple is unable to provide a solution. Replaced Apple TVs, HomePods, removed and re-added devices to my iTunes account, taken other people's HomePods that do work, reset and added. No good.

If Apple could just publish a list of certified routers and recommended settings now that they have discontinued the Airport series, that would be great.

Unfortunately it is a common issue.

iTunes match had the same problem a few years back. Uploads only worked with Airport Routers.
 
doomfront said:
Thought I read somewhere as long as you have one Sonos speaker that is compatible with Airplay 2 then it'll work with them all. I could be wrong
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Pretty sure this is correct. :) I think as long as you have one, it can be used as a hub of sorts.
 
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steve knight said:
so I dont see any settings of the i cloud message storage what am I missing?
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There is an option of iCloud-->Apps Using iCloud-->Messages in Settings now. Try that. I have 11.4 on my iPhone and just put it on my iPad Mini, so I will test it in a few minutes.
[doublepost=1527617287][/doublepost]
w5jck said:
I also see the option of iCloud-->Apps Using iCloud-->Messages on my iPhone 7 running iOS 11.4. This option is not available on my iOS 11.3.x devices. I'm currently installing 11.4 on one of my iPads. After it installs I'll verify if this option is new.
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With 11.3.x this option was not on my iPad Mini. After updating to 11.4 this option is on my iPad, so 11.4 definitely adds this option. I turned it on for Messages on both my iPhone 7 and iPad Mini, but I do not see any difference, and there is no syncing of the inboxes. Looks like another WTH does it do update.

This is disappointing. How fricking hard can it be to get inboxes for Messages to sync across devices?!
 
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Menel said:
iPad Air is 4 soc generations behind. In number crunching power, RAM capacity, IO bandwidth, etc. Apple isn't going sit still for you. They are a technology company moving forward. Not always on all facets, but their CPU/software team has been pushes the boundaries.

Be glad you still get software/security/and at least partial feature updates pushed down... it's better than any other technology widget vendor would provide.
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Which feature from iOS10 to iOS11 is so powerful that suddenly the hardware is not enough?.
I'm not asking Apple for anything, Apple can do whatever they want and fans will just they thing, but slowing devices with software updates is a different story.
Also, you should now that security updates don't have to be exclusively released for a new iOS, unless having users to install the new iOS is in your best interest.
 
w5jck said:
There is an option of iCloud-->Apps Using iCloud-->Messages in Settings now. Try that. I have 11.4 on my iPhone and just put it on my iPad Mini, so I will test it in a few minutes.
[doublepost=1527617287][/doublepost]
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ya found it I went the wrong direction.
 
bitslap47 said:
Tried with:
NetGear R6700
NetGear N600
ASUS AC3200
NetGear AC2600
Linksys WRT300N
Works With:
Airport Extreme
It is completely random. I have talked with people with some of the above routers that failed for me but works for them, loaded their configs, etc. Apple is unable to provide a solution. Replaced Apple TVs, HomePods, removed and re-added devices to my iTunes account, taken other people's HomePods that do work, reset and added. No good.
If Apple could just publish a list of certified routers and recommended settings now that they have discontinued the Airport series, that would be great.
Unfortunately it is a common issue.
iTunes match had the same problem a few years back. Uploads only worked with Airport Routers.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I would think not all users of those many routers are having the issue. I've used iTunes Match since it was early beta and it had lots of issues during the beta and after.
It seems a lot of people have had airplay issues but I never have and have used it extensively with many devices for years in multi-room in large house. Hard to think of what it would be beyond a poorly configured network but it sounds like you know what you are doing.
I have heard of 3rd party apps like air parrot impacting airplay or also Mac firewall settings
 
w5jck said:
With 11.3.x this option was not on my iPad Mini. After updating to 11.4 this option is on my iPad, so 11.4 definitely adds this option. I turned it on for Messages on both my iPhone 7 and iPad Mini, but I do not see any difference, and there is no syncing of the inboxes. Looks like another WTH does it do update.

This is disappointing. How fricking hard can it be to get inboxes for Messages to sync across devices?!
Click to expand...

Mine works. Seems like it needs some time to push all your messages into iCloud. Then I was able to go in and delete old conversations, with a new warning that says this action will delete them on all devices.
 
garethjs said:
I’m waiting for their excuse on their wireless charging mat
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Apple sometimes pre-announces products, if it suits their purposes. They also sometimes miss their announced ship date.

But AirPower isn’t late yet, it’s only scheduled for sometime this year.
 
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doomfront said:
I have a Play:5 and a Connect that I use on my home theatre. Thought I read somewhere as long as you have one Sonos speaker that is compatible with Airplay 2 then it'll work with them all. I could be wrong
Click to expand...
You will have to group the Play:5 with any unsupported speakers to Airplay to those speakers.
 
Bistroengine said:
Still a no show for iMessages in iCloud?
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Why so made. Details OS upgrade specifically what this updat included.

ChazSch said:
welcome to Sonos 2015.....
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The once hailed king, which for its greed dishonoured the members of its kingdom with vague announcements n promices.

citysnaps said:
Will Sonos wirelessly let me listen to the soundtrack of videos (YouTube, etc) I watch on my Mac desktop and laptop computers?
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Thinking ahead.

oneMadRssn said:
Via AirPlay, yes.
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false! Not without another 3rd part sw install & config.
 
spazzcat said:
I wonder what the new topic people will find to complain about...
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The color shifted by 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

It hurts my eyes now. iOS 11.3.4 is junk. I’m switching to Android.

:D
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bluecoast said:
I’ll be almost disappointed if iMessage in iCloud is released.

I’d like to think that 5 years from now, it’ll still be in beta.

Sort of like a mascot for iOS and macOS.

It’ll be familiar and reassuring when it’s pulled after beta 3 of every public beta.

One of those things that grounds you in an uncertain world.
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No... they’re definitely pushing for messages in the cloud. That’s the ransom. Once your entire message history is in the cloud, how are you going to get it back on your phone if you should ever decide that you don’t want iCloud?

It’s a smart strategy. Welcome to the eternal subscription. Pay our rate or lose it all.

It’s just a matter of time.
 
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flyinmac said:
No... they’re definitely pushing for messages in the cloud. That’s the ransom. Once your entire message history is in the cloud, how are you going to get it back on your phone if you should ever decide that you don’t want iCloud?

It’s a smart strategy. Welcome to the eternal subscription. Pay our rate or lose it all.

It’s just a matter of time.
Click to expand...
You don’t lose anything, you have 30 days to download your messages if you turn off messages in iCloud.
 
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