The debut of SharePlay in iOS 15 later this year will see Apple bring one of streaming’s trendiest features to iPhone users. This feature will allow FaceTime users to stream music, online videos, and movies together with friends. With this, Apple can stir up more fun amongst their facetime users and hook a new generation. Apple’s FaceTime is likely to compete more directly with platforms like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Houseparty, which all offer ways to video chat while watching things as a group.
The feature will be available to users on iOS 15, iPadOS 15 and MacOS Monterey from this Autumn. A public beta will also be launched in July.
SharePlay, announced earlier this week and likely arriving in the fall, will allow FaceTime users to share and stream media in real time from an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. It’s a neat tool for the pandemic era, and it takes inspiration from the watch party modes that many major streaming platforms — including Disney Plus, Hulu, and Prime Video, among others — added themselves in the last year. For services where it’s not supported, like Netflix, there are popular extensions that enable simultaneous streaming and chatting as well.
Apple announced SharePlay along with a host of other new updates at this year’s virtual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
