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Show HN: AirAP AirPlay server – AirPlay to an iOS Device

Show HN: AirAP AirPlay server – AirPlay to an iOS Device

45 comments

·June 3, 2025

I made AirAP because I wanted a simple way to play sound from my Mac Mini when my speaker broke. But it’s got a ton of other uses too, like testing how audio sounds like on different devices, or repurposing old wired speakers.

This was incredibly fun to make - can’t wait for you all to see it!

LowResHusband

That's interesting! Does it work for streaming video or just audio? Sometimes I'd love to AirPlay from my video editing software to my iPhone to check how it looks on the smaller screen, checking colors and overall appearance.

ptk

We’ve been looking for something like this for our conference room. A PC presenting on a large TV, but mirrored/AirPlayed on iPads for anyone that wanted a version closer to their face.

karhuton

You can give this a go. Made it for just this type of scenarios: https://bluescreen.live

If it works for you, happy the help you setup a private instance or something. And for in-office use, maybe optimize for quality rather than minimal updates it is now.

mkrahul

Sunshine and moonlight are what you need.

bound008

Thank you so much for checking something off of my todo list!

Apple TV lets you share with two sets of apple headphones, which is awesome... but I wanted a way to:

* Share to more than two sets * Extend coverage past the (very generous) bluetooth range of AirPods. * Have lossless (albeit 44khz/16bit) wireless audio with audiophile headphones.

I was considering using an esp32, but so happy this exists now! Thanks!

whycome

Doesn’t this still limit to one device?

Lalabadie

Bluetooth output is limited to one device, Airplay (from one device) can stream to several receivers.

bound008

On Apple devices you can stream to two bluetooth destinations if they are Apple (/beats) devices that can support it.

bound008

I haven't tried it yet but on Apple devices you can AirPlay audio to multiple devices. I think the limit on AirPlay 2 might be 16.

bilekas

This is actually something I've been looking for for a while, through some workarounds with jelkyfin and others I've been able to navigate something but this seems promising.

I've got a few questions maybe later with the protocols and stuff but so far from initial look, it seems super promising.

Nice job really!

planetpluta

A lot of apps allow you to AirPlay to multiple devices at once — would be neat to put this on a bunch of iphones to simultaneously play music

r00fus

Any suggestions for such apps? I'm planning using something like this for a silent disco...

doublerabbit

Neat way to turn an iDevice in to a usable DAC.

whycome

How old of a device can I install this on? (Eg to make an old phone an AirPlay receiver).

Edit: looks like ios17 is earliest

neon443

I’m working on back porting it now

zlies

Nice work! Do you think that it is possible to port this to watchOS?

bri3d

It's just a thin wrapper for https://github.com/qasim/Airstream (I think it's very lame that the README doesn't mention this), which I think would work in a watchOS app although I'm not 100% sure it would get approved.

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neon443

I think I could take a look, but watchOS has different limitations for background apps You mean u want to run the app on Apple Watch?

zlies

I‘m thinking about an app on the watch, that acts as an airplay (video) receiver, so I can stream and watch videos on my wrist while cooking

neon443

Sadly the shairplay library only supports audio so that’s the best that I can do without using a different implementation

reboot81

Works great from iPhone to iPhone.

Aurornis

This is cool, but like the other comment said I think it would be prudent to mention in the README that this uses the Airstream project for the AirPlay implementation: https://github.com/qasim/Airstream

I thought this was a new Airplay implementation from the way it was described, but then I looked at the source code and realized there wasn’t much there. Nothing wrong with wrapping a library, but it’s nice to mention the technologies used and set expectations.

neon443

I’ve fixed the readme to add a link to airstream

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yunohn

Libraries are made to be used as the base for the actual application. I checked your GitHub link - no clue how I’d use it without coding an entire solution.

Aurornis

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pvg

These threads are really about discussing the work and less about policing projects' formatting, names, credits, etc. It's just way, way, way less interesting.

varenc

I'm impressed this is so instantly installable via test flight! I have a suspicion Apple my pull this soon.

jiveturkey

I wouldn't think so, since it's not AirPlay 2.

neon443

It isn’t, but AirPlay 2 doesn’t have CD quality audio it’s compressed aac

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sampton

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SunlitCat

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