In a big move for the tech industry, Apple is adding AirPlay to its range of speakers and will start shipping them to customers in the US this week.
The announcement was made at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco today.
AirPlay was the name given to the Apple wireless standard that allows wireless audio devices to stream audio and video to the television and set it as the default.
Apple has been working on expanding AirPlay support for a while, and the company recently announced it would begin rolling out support for it in a number of US markets later this year.
AirPlay is also a great option for streaming media content, especially music and videos, to devices connected to Apple TVs, iPhones and Macs.
Apple’s AirPlay streaming audio and media player already supports more than 1,000 streaming devices, including Apple TV, Xbox, and Samsung TVs, among others.
Apple’s Airplay streaming audio-only speaker is the first to come with AirPlay, which is now available to Apple TV users in the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and US.
It’s available for purchase now in the U.S.
Apple also announced that it’s making available an “AirPlay for Mac” for Mac users, which will add support for AirPlay on Macs as well.
It’ll be available for a limited time, but Apple said it will offer it for free.
Apple said this is “an ideal way to expand Apple’s range of devices, and make it easy to add AirPlay-compatible speakers to your Mac and other Macs.”
AirPlay will be available to purchase from the Apple Store and the Mac App Store starting today.
It will also be available on Apple’s web store later this week, with the Apple TV version due out in the second half of this year and AirPlay for iPhones and iPads later this fall.