During its Worldwide Developers Conference this week, Mac computers.
The concept of sharing experiences remotely is one that's gained prominence since early last year as the COVID-19 forced people to avoid getting together and stay at home instead. People turned to communications technologies to keep in touch and those technologies were developed and evolved in response to the new use cases emerging. Apple's addition of SharePlay is something that may have come along anyway but that has likely been at the very least expedited. It's also a feature that may have been normalized by the pandemic to an extent that may not have ever been the case otherwise.
press play in Apple Music on a video streaming service and then choose to listen or watch together with all of the call participants. The music or video content is played to the participants in sync and everyone can control playback.
Apple SharePlay Features
When using SharePlay to listen or watch together, s are given a picture-in-picture view, with other call participants shown in a small cut-out box. If the wants to navigate away from the call to do something else, like order a takeaway, the whole window will be reduced in size but still shown so that the does not miss anything. In addition, s can extend the display of their device to an Apple TV, allowing them to watch a movie or show on a bigger screen while still chatting on their device.
In addition to watching or listening to content with family and friends, s can show others the screen of their device. This functionality can be used for browsing rental properties, holiday listings, or restaurants together, walking someone through how to do something like changing a setting on their phone or demonstrating a tricky move on a game.
To ensure SharePlay can be used widely, Apple has created an API for it. Developers can build SharePlay functionality into any app they create. Apple already has a number of major partners working with SharePlay, including Disney+ Hulu, HBO Max, NBA, Twitch, and TikTok.