AirPlay Direct - Discuss?

Interesting... Perhaps they can make it do high resolution audio. Apple will need to move away from the internal name "AirPlay Direct" as there is already someone using this name, see airplaydirect.com, or they could take legal action and claim it as their own, or they could just give it a version number.

Come to think of it how has airplaydirect.com got away with it for so long? They did register the domain name in 2005.

As you say Tog, only time will tell. 

I am doubtful that anything above 44.1/16 ( or maybe 24) will be offered by Apple for quite a while yet. They would no doubt not be introducing that until they have HiRes downloads for sale in i-tunes. They aren't likely to be generous enough to allow extenally sourced HiRes audio to get a head start over them.

The current Airplay does the job if an IOS device is lurking in the mix AND in the case of Linn for example their DS range can be 'Airplayed' to, For a more elegant solution their own offering called SongCast works through an adhoc network connection already without any IOS device needed in the mix and does the job at CD quality very simply already.

No Naim equivalent yet or in the near future it seems

Geoff

give it up.  they dont even offer red book rez (16/44) what makes you think you will get hires.

haha.  laughs all around.

Bluetooth????  Seriously? iBluetooth, Now with 40' range!!!

-patrick

I'd reckon Naim and Airplay are not going to happen.

I remember Paul Stephenson posting about wait until the end of the year for an announcement - around two years ago. Then nothing.

Mind you, I do not think Airplay has caught on anywhere near where people thought it would so probably a good decision!

Perhaps best not to post ambitions in the first place.

In the spirit of which I withdraw my ambition for a Naim microwave. 

A new version of Airplay sounds just the ticket to me ... if it works as well as the Chord implementation of APTX/Bluetooth then it'll be a winner .... as soon as they start offering high resolution downloads then that'll work well for me. 

It'd be great to be able to upgrade my existing library to high resolution through the iTunes store ... Apple could just give an option in iTunes against each song/album to upgrade to 24 bit ... they'd make a fortune from it. 

Perhaps Amazon could give them competition .... as long as its Windows free then count me in. 

What makes you think they:

A) Have hires material to sell in the first place?

B) Have the bandwidth to do so even if they could

C) Make a fortune (NO ONE cares for full CD rez as it stands now)?

it will NEVER happen.  They will instead push their Lossy/HiRes CRAP at some point.  I doubt they will even ever offer full CD res.

Lastly, how is Bluetooth a viable streaming method.  What is the range?  How will this work when you want to stream away from home?  How will they handle video and pictures?  ALL media needs to be able to be streamed.

-patrick

Apple are in the business of making money, lots of it.  I doubt us audiophiles make up even 0.1% of their total customer base using iTunes.  The cost of implementing hi res audio for us would be derisory by Apple's standards of revenue steam.  

But who knows? Maybe one day someone of influence at Apple may be an audiophile.  Ok, I know, doubtful but we can wish.

As for Airplay, I am not sure why we need it.  I am a firm believer in a wired connection.

Richard

I dont think those are mutually exclusive.

Let's take this bit by bit:

A. To quote from Apple's asset delivery guide "The iTunes Store accepts audio with a sampling rate of 96Khz and 24-bit resolution for album tracks and ringtones."  That would imply they do have hi-res audio to sell.

B. They already have one huge data centre in North Carolina and are planning to build a second.  Perhaps this will help cope with the extra bandwidth?  With the experience Apple are getting from their iCloud service and their move to all software updates provided by download (no more physical media deliveries) one would expect them to be able to factor in an incremental increase in larger iTunes asset downloads.

C. By Oct 2011, 16 billion songs had been downloaded from iTunes.  If even a tiny percentage of those songs were to be 'upgraded' to a hi-res version (either as ALAC, CAF, or some new as yet undisclosed format), that would still represent a healthy addition to Apple's profits, let alone all the sales of new material.

"It will NEVER happen" Really? You know this for sure?  Please forward the name of your crystal ball supplier so that we can all share in your ability to predict the future.  The truth is nobody but Apple knows what they will do with the future of iTunes & hi-res audio.  There are many who wish they will pull their finger out and get on with hi-res downloads and there are also many who wish Apple would just go away and leave the fate of hi-res in the hands of the music companies.

Bluetooth has been gaining ground in recent years as an alternative to AirPlay to stream music to enabled devices.  It's still only a low-power nearfield communicator, but it can potentially work with WiFi to stream high data rates.  It's success in this will depend on how it get's implemented and the traction it gains with device manufacturers. 

Matthew

Questions, Questions, Questions, flooding into the mind of the concerned young person today. Ah, but it's a great time to be alive ladies and gentlemen. And that's the theme of our posts for tonight, 

Mathew has done a splendid job of answering all your questions for you Patrick. 

You'll be able to upgrade to a Mac and join in the fun when the first high-resolution hits the streets on iTunes next year. I hope Apple can make this happen and like their existing products, it'll just work. All these format wars will go away and we'll all be able to just listen to the music in splendid quality.