Apple Reverse Airplay Patented

The ability to stream your content from your tablet computer or your Smartphone to your TV is, needless to say, very cool. Whether you accomplish this through a media usb stick or have a dedicated server running specific software, the effect is fundamentally the same. One of the main reasons why people purchase Apple TV set-top boxes, for instance,  is because the technology and hardware will allow pushing of content from an iOS device to a big screen TV. Not to mention that fact that the set-top box itself offers connections to a wide variety of content.

Having an Apple TV box connected up to a smart TV is the easiest way to mirror an iOS device’s screen. Wouldn’t it be pretty cool if you were able to accomplish the task in reverse and do it the other way around? Perhaps that might happen in the future and it seems as thought the guys at Apple though this too, because Apple has taken another trip to the US patent office and patented Reverse AirPlay. Yes, it is as obvious as it sounds; basically you would be able to mirror whatever is on the Apple TV to an iOS device.

The ability to stream your content from your tablet computer or your Smartphone to your TV is, needless to say, very cool. Whether you accomplish this through a media usb stick or have a dedicated server running specific software, the effect is fundamentally the same.

When you sit down and look at the the idea on paper, Reverse AirPlay looks like it will make a lot of sense. If you have the ability to mirror content being played on your Apple TV to an iOS device it would be a great feature to have, especially if you could send different content to different devices.

Obviously this patent is still just that, a patent and as such it could be a long time before it may be implemented. Regarding the hardware itself,  it was rumoured that in 2014 Apple were to release a refreshed version of the Apple TV, but as you know they didn’t. The rumour mill has started up again and it it speculated that Apple will revive the, now aged, model and a new Apple TV will be released that will bring some major upgrades for the set-top box. So, it is likely that Reverse AirPlay might appear, not in this, but in the next model of Apple TV?

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SOURCE: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/12/reverse-airplay-patented-by-apple/?utm_source=mobilerepublic