Despite the fact Apple launched AirPlay 2 way back in 2018, there are some iOS apps out there that don’t support it. One being the ridiculously popular music streaming app, Spotify. And while it sounds like the company is looking into it, and even plans on implementing support at some point, it turns out it won’t be soon.
As first picked up by MacRumors, Spotify has informed its interested listeners that support for AirPlay 2 with the iOS app is now paused. The moderator, Xenia, says that the developers have discussed adding support for the feature internally, and “are working on supporting AirPlay 2 in a proper way,” they have decided to “close it” for now.
Xenia goes into a bit of detail, saying that the reason why Spotify has decided to pause the feature support is due to “audio driver compatibility issues.” Going further, the moderator adds that they discovered it’s a “bigger project that we won’t be able to complete in the foreseeable future.”
Here’s the full forum post, which was posted on August 5, 2021:
Hello everyone,
We’ve discussed this Idea internally and while we are working on supporting AirPlay2 in a proper way, we have decided to close it for now.
The reason for this is that due to audio driver compatibility issues, this seems like a bigger project that we won’t be able to complete in the foreseeable future.
Please keep adding your votes and comments here and as soon as we have anything new to share, we’ll check back with an update.
As mentioned above, AirPlay 2 arrived in early 2018. It brings with it several enhancements to the first version of the wireless streaming feature, including better quality, Siri voice control, and more. And, as noted today in the original report, it can be added to an iOS app by implementing AVFoundation framework APIs. Apparently that’s a four-step process, as noted by Apple.
So, AirPlay 2 support in the Spotify iOS app is not coming soon, it seems. Maybe this is a sign that Apple is ready to roll out AirPlay 3 in the very near future, and Spotify is simply focusing on that? Maybe?