Snippet: Netflix Kills AirPlay Support on iOS ☇

Sean Hollister for The Verge:

Netflix confirmed to The Verge that it pulled the wireless casting feature this past week, due to what it’s calling a “technical limitation.” But it’s not the kind of technical limitation you’d think.

You see, Apple recently partnered with most of the major TV brands to allow AirPlay 2 to send shows directly to their 2019 TV sets with a firmware update later this year, but a Netflix spokeperson tells me AirPlay 2 doesn’t have digital identifiers to let Netflix tell those TVs apart — and so the company can’t certify its users are getting the best Netflix experience when casting to those new sets.

So now, it’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater and pulling the plug on AirPlay, period. “We can’t distinguish which device is which, we can’t actually certify the devices… so we’ve had to just shut down support for it,” a Netflix spokesperson says.

I was always under the impression that as long as the receiving device supported AirPlay (previously just Apple TVs and various audio devices), any content that could play on iOS could be piped to it. Even though Netflix claims it’s not a policy/punishment change, it seems incredibly lazy and drives people to the various smart TV apps instead. Perhaps it’s so that they can figure out what kind of devices they’re using, rather than just assuming that AirPlay = Apple TV?

For what it’s worth, I rarely use AirPlay with Netflix, due to being logged into numerous devices, but it does have utility if visiting friends/family/hotels and not having to log into the Netflix app on their devices.