July 10, 2012 at 5:27 p.m. PST
The Apple ecosystem features AirPlay technology, which allows users to wirelessly stream audio and video to their Apple TV or audio to their AirPort Express base station. This technology evolved out of AirTunes, which was an Apple innovation.
The ability to wirelessly transmit a computer’s display onto a TV was first introduced by Intel, for Windows PCs, with their Wireless Display (WiDi) technology. A few months after WiDi was introduced, Apple introduced AirPlay, which allowed iTunes (Mac or PC) and select iOS apps to transmit video onto Apple TV.
The ability to do screen sharing over AirPlay was developed by third-party companies — products such as AirParrot. Apple introduced screen mirroring in iOS 5, and “official” screen mirroring for the Mac with OS X Mountain Lion. You can also get third-party software to turn your computer into an AirPlay target machine, enabling it to receive music or video transmitted from another device. As usual, Apple only supports the use cases that most people will perform — play music or video from one device or computer onto Apple TV. AirPlay is so successful and ubiquitous, it is now built into several AV receivers.
All of my music is in iTunes. I either bought it from iTunes or imported it from CDs I own. Since my computer is not in my living room, AirPlay is essential to enjoy music and video. For about a year, AirPlay was rock solid. A few months ago, Apple introduced the iOS 5.1 update, along with a major update and facelift for Apple TV. I immediately experienced problems with AirPlay. It would crash a few times in just an hour of listening to music. Indeed, this is why I started writing this blog. iTunes is one of the most essential apps for the Apple ecosystem, and AirPlay enables it to be a viable home entertainment system. When this doesn’t work, it is a catastrophe — literally tears before bedtime. Thousands of dollars of technology and media are near useless, due to the lack of reliability.
After a few updates to Apple TV, I realize these problems have not been ameliorated. When I play music from iTunes to my Apple TV, either via my Mac or my iPad 2, it will crash. Apple seems to have “fixed” this by forcing Apple TV to do a quick (~5 second) restart, but when it comes back up it does not display the track information or album art. The connection to the computer or iPad is half-severed. The music still plays, but the meta-data is no longer transmitted. This brings me to the first tip:
1. Reboot your Apple TV before you start a music session. You can do this by going to settings -> general -> restart. You can also hold down the bottom select button and menu button on the Apple remote for about 5 seconds, until the light on your Apple TV flashes rapidly. Fortunately, restarting Apple TV takes about 30 seconds. I find that when Apple TV is freshly restarted, AirPlay crashes are unlikely. I often forget to do this, and that’s when I get a crash, usually within 20 minutes of AirPlay use.
2. Push, don’t pull. If you use Apple TV to access your iTunes Library (with the “Computers” menu option on Apple TV), when AirPlay crashes it does not recover. If you “push” the music to Apple TV by initiating playback on iTunes or your iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, when it crashes it will recover within 5 seconds. You can even control your computer’s iTunes library by using the Remote app for iOS. You won’t need to keep running to your computer to change music.
3. Use the Amazon Cloud Player app for iOS instead of the Music app or iTunes on your computer. It does not crash AirPlay and can easily access your iTunes collection. You also save electricity by transferring the music you want to play onto your iOS device. iPads and iPhones use far less electricity than Macs and PCs. This is much easier if you have wireless syncing enabled for your iOS device, however, this is buggy and fails for me about half the time. I wrote a how-to article on fixing issues with iTunes wi-fi sync. Apple has not fixed this yet. If it fails, usually just quitting and restarting iTunes will work. If not, restart your Mac and then restart your iOS device.
4. One leading cause of AirPlay crashes is the “Play iTunes in the Cloud” feature. When enabled, AirPlay will only be initiated from your iOS device. The actual content will stream directly from iTunes to your Apple TV. The main advantage is preservation of battery life on your device. Your iPhone or iPad will not have to beam content to Apple TV over your WiFi network, which saves battery life.
Unfortunately, if iTunes or your ISP is having problems, this feature doesn’t work well. When your Apple TV tries to pull content from iTunes, network issues can cause streaming to stop. Your music might also skip to the next track. It may also make your iOS app behave strangely or crash. I only play music from my iPhone or iPad over AirPlay when my ISP is having problems. Otherwise, it makes sense to stream music directly from Apple TV.
You can turn this setting off by going to Settings > AirPlay > Play from iTunes in the Cloud. Make sure to turn this off, and not set it to Auto. While it may seem that the Auto setting will failover gracefully and stream music from your device if the Cloud is not accessible, this is not the case. It not only fails to play the content, but your Apple TV and device will have problems such as user interface bugs and freezes. Furthermore, if you have already downloaded music on your device, streaming it from iTunes in the Cloud will basically download it again. There really isn’t a compelling reason to have AirPlay stream content directly from the cloud. This is the default setting, and I strongly recommend turning it off.
If you play a lot of music and do so on your computer, even if you shut down the display, you will use a fair amount of electricity. Saving electricity not only saves you money, but is better for the environment. I strongly recommend transferring the current music (or video) you want to listen to from your computer-based iTunes library to your iOS device. Your iOS device uses a fraction of the electricity of a computer, especially a Mac Pro. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the music from your iTunes library, onto your iPad or iPhone. If you are having problems with iTunes wi-fi sync, please refer to this how-to guide.
5. Set auto-lock to “never” on your iOS device (iPad or iPhone). I have noticed that I usually get a crash shortly after my iPad’s screen goes dark automatically. Perhaps there is a bug in AirPlay caused by some power-saving feature. I don’t have this problem when I lock the device by clicking the “hold” button (on the side of the device).
6. Always make a playlist. I recommend this, even if you are just listening to one album. It will enable you to enjoy a seamless music experience. I often start listening to one album, and want to listen to another. With a playlist, I just add it to the end or anywhere in between. Maybe I don’t want to hear a certain song. With a playlist, I just remove the song. I often regret not making a playlist but never regret making one. It takes a few seconds, and makes for a better listening and user experience.
7. Make sure your Apple TV is up-to-date. Usually, Apple TV will prompt you when a system update has been released. However, it doesn’t hurt to check once in a while. You may have missed it, or perhaps someone else in your household saw the message and skipped the update. It could also be an issue on Apple’s side. You can check for system updates by going to settings → general → update software from the Apple TV home menu. Usually updates are improvements. The update immediately after iOS 5.0 was released was a disaster, however.
8. Restore your Apple TV. This may sound drastic, and it is, but not that hard to do. There really isn’t anything stored on your Apple TV, except maybe what’s in the buffer. You don’t need to back up any files or worry about losing anything, so it’s not too bad. Check out Apple’s knowledge base article on how to do this… Restoring will work if something was corrupted on your Apple TV. It can happen…
9. Reboot everything. I mean everything — even your wireless router. Shut down your components in the following order: Apple TV (put it to sleep and then unplug it), computer, any iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), and your wi-fi router. Wait a few seconds, and then boot them up in the reverse order (wi-fi router, iOS device, computer, plug in Apple TV).
10. Play your music directly on Apple TV. With the 5.2 upgrade, Apple added the ability to directly play iTunes purchases without an iTunes Match subscription. With 5.2.1, this feature is pretty solid. This will only allow you to play iTunes purchases. You need to subscribe to iTunes Match to play music you have imported into iTunes. Simply click on the Music icon on the home screen and navigate the menus to access your iTunes music. The audio quality isn’t amazing. The bass seems hyped and the quality seems like it is less than 256 kbps AAC. It’s good for short sessions. The user interface is decent, allowing one to manage playback with the Up Next list.
I offer these suggestions for those who still have problems after restarting Apple TV. For me, restarting Apple TV works 100% of the time. As long as I remember to do this before I start a music-listening session, everything works fine. If I forget, the worst thing that happens is Apple TV crashes, reboots itself, and I miss about 5-10 seconds of music and the album art no longer shows up. I have never had to restore or do a ecosystem-wide reboot.
These are a few tips for having a better AirPlay experience. I hope it helps. I have noticed the crashes tend to center around playing music from my iPad or Mac. It is Apple TV that crashes. The iPad and Mac still seem unaffected. I have very few crashes when playing video, be it from the iPad, iTunes on my Mac, Hulu, AirParrot, or Netflix. This bugginess all seems to center around playing music from iTunes or Music. Too bad I listen to a lot of music. Sometimes you’re just better off turning on the radio. My Sony HD radio sounds great and never fails.
UPDATES:
- Version 2.1.2 of Podcasts fixes the AirPlay bugs. Unfortunately, the damage is done. The app has a 2/5 star rating in the App Store. Apple really needs to improve the quality of their free and stock apps — make them as good as GarageBand and iMovie.
- The newest version of Podcasts (2.1.1) has severe AirPlay bugs. If you play Podcasts over AirPlay, you will likely experience crashes and other issues. This is not a problem with AirPlay technology, but an issue with the app. Hopefully this will be fixed in upcoming versions. If you haven’t upgraded, you might want to skip this version. If you have upgraded, you can try using a different Podcasts app, play the Podcast directly on your Apple TV or try to find the content on the provider’s website.
- I’ve been using AirPlay extensively with iOS 7 (and now iOS 7.0.3) for over a month. It’s rock solid. I haven’t had one crash. If you’re suffering from AirPlay crashes, try upgrading your iOS device and Apple TV to the latest software.
- New article – “Apple TV Games”: 10 games you can play on Apple TV with Dual Screen AirPlay.
- If you are having problems with Hulu Plus, check out this article.
- Find out how to get the most out of your Apple TV. Check out 30+ tips that will improve your Apple TV experience.
- Do you love iTunes Radio? Here are some tips to help you get more out of iTunes Radio for Apple TV.