Comcast has integrated AirPlay mirroring capabilities into its Xfinity Stream app, allowing users to essentially carry their pay TV subscription on their Apple or Android mobile device and watch it on any AirPlay-enabled television.
For a cable company that lost nearly 11% of its video customers last year, it seems like a bit of a duh moment. No. 2 U.S. cable operator Charter Communications, after all, has supported AirPlay on its Spectrum TV app for some time.
Many connected TV devices and smart TV operating systems beyond the Apple TV 4K now support AirPlay — notably, the latter iterations of Roku and Amazon Fire TV TVOS support Apple’s inter-device connection standard.
Indeed, whether a user is trying to unwind in a hotel room or continue watching a show in their bedroom after starting it in the living room, AirPlay mirroring is kind of an existentially important feature for a pay TV streaming app.
But these kinds of support agreements between big media-tech companies are, of course, always more complicated than they look. Notably, it was only in June of last year that Comcast finally published a version of Xfinity Stream that supports the Apple TV 4K CTV device. And it was also less than a year ago that Comcast integrated the Apple TV Plus app on its X1 and Xfinity Flex TVOS platforms.
And not for nothin’, amid Comcast's dwindling video economics, the cable company is further driving secondary set-top leasing into further obsolescence among its 16.6 million remaining pay TV subs. ▪️
