[Frank777]

Trying to watch The Chosen's new Episode Four today, and learned that mirroring streaming video from my crazy-expensive iPhone to my crazy-expensive MacBook Air is surprisingly convoluted.

Is there some reason I can't just hit a button to send the video from iOS to MacOS?
Why can't a $2,000 MacBook Air stand in for a $250 AppleTV?

Am I missing something?

[chucker]

You can use something like Reflector or AirServer to turn the Mac into an AirPlay receiver.

It's unclear to me if Apple doesn't want to build this feature in to avoid a fight with the content industry, or if this is one of those things they somehow keep delaying (such as AirPlay 2 support on the Mac).

[Frank777]

Thanks. I'm looking at Reflector, but still think it's weird to need to pay $20 to connect these two Apple devices like this.

[chucker]

Yeah. I haven't found a free way of accomplishing this.

[psmith2.0]

While none of this directly impacts me, it is weird that two Apple devices can't "play nice", out of the box. That's a genuine surprise.

Yeah, it might be for legal/content-related reasons, who knows. But it sure seems strange that these high-end, expensive devices - which are capable of so much - don't do something this basic/simple. It never occurred to me they couldn't/wouldn't.

Don't worry...that feature probably gets folded into their news/music/TV subscription/use stuff bundle soon enough.