Audio Streaming from Mac to iOS and Beyond

Dan Moren over at SixColors has been on a roll lately with hot tips on home automation and connecting various “Internet of Things” devices. His latest bit is on streaming audio from the Mac to the Amazon Echo (with an iPhone in between):

I paired my iPhone with the Echo as usual, then launched Rogue Amoeba’s excellent Airfoil on my Mac, and configured it to send audio from QuickTime Player to the company’s iOS app, Airfoil Satellite, which I had in turn opened on my iPhone. Ta-da! Audio streamed from my Mac through the iPhone to the Echo with nary a problem.

It’s a clever solution, but it reminds me once again just how limited the Mac and iOS are when it comes to freely routing audio within devices or out to other devices. The only method Apple provides iOS devices for routing audio anywhere else is with AirPlay, and the Mac can’t be an AirPlay receiver out of the box. You need a third-party app for that. Trying to route audio from one Mac app to another? Need an app for that. And that’s still not even possible on iOS for the most part.

At the risk of endangering Rogue Amoeba’s business, I really hope macOS 10.13 and iOS 11 introduce new features to allow inter-app and inter-device audio routing on all these devices. It’s already possible to route MIDI data around from point A to point B. Audio is the next logical step.

Link: Quick Tip: Streaming audio from a Mac to the Amazon Echo