CES 2019 is among us, meaning many announcements from big and small companies alike. While Apple has never attended CES themselves, we often see announcements and products that pertain to them and their services, such as HomeKit.
This year, we have gotten a fairly surprising announcement from Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Sony: support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit will be coming to their latest TVs. Also, Samsung announced that iTunes Movies and TV Shows will be coming to their Smart TV’s.
But, what exactly does this mean? Just like HomePod, Apple TV, and some other third-party speakers, you will be able to select the TV (along with other compatible devices) and stream synced audio from your Apple device, just as if you were selecting AirPods from the AirPlay Audio menu. But, it also means, like with Apple TV, you can easily mirror your iOS device or Mac to your TV wirelessly. As for HomeKit support, this means that you can have a TV turn on or off with a scene, easily control certain things like TV shows from your phone (as if you were playing music from your phone), tell Siri to play music on the TV, and tell Siri to play a certain show or movie on the TV.
But, why is Apple doing this? Well, there’s many likely reasons. First, Apple is planning tons of original content on a new Netflix-like subscription and they want as many people as possible to be able to watch this on their TVs. Also, Apple is becoming more and more of a services company. But, in order to be successful with this, they need to open their services to other platforms. Apple has been making many new and surprising deals lately, such as Apple Music on Amazon Echo devices through Alexa.
I personally hope Apple continues to be more open with their stuff. But I don’t see iMessage ever coming to Android. Perhaps maybe it’s best that way.
Supported TVs:
Samsung
- Samsung QLED Series (2018/19)
- Samsung 8, 7, 6, 5, and 4 series (2018/19)
Vizio
- Vizio P-Series Quantum (2019/18)
- Vizio P-, M-, E-, and D-Series (2017/18/19)
- “Coming during 2nd quarter of 2019”
Sony
- Sony A9G Series (2019)
- Sony Z9G Series (2019)
- Sony X950G Series (all 2019 models, 2018 85″/75″/65″/55″ models)
- “Coming later this year”
LG
- All 2019 “AI TV” devices
- LG OLED (2019)
- LG NanoCell SM9X series (2019)
- LG NanoCell SM8X series (2019)
- LG UHD UM7X series (2019)
- LG TV R (the cool new one that ROLLS)
