Some people (myself included) are mighty upset at Apple for failing to conspicuously advertise that Airplay does not work with macs running i3 processors.
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Airplay Not Working for i3 Processors
- Thread starter bandarbush
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I never said they would - I just said that it wasn't very prominently (i.e. conspicuously) advertised. If you look at that thread, there are a lot of irate customers today. You, NeoMayhem, are more computer savvy than most, but for the rest of the public (i.e. that don't read this board or frequent mac sites), it feels like Apple should have advertised this limitation more prominently.
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You're quite right, however, it is true that i3 processors lack the specs needed to run it, right?
Also, if it is truly a hardware limitation, I don't understand how the airparrot ap can allow it to run smoothly, even on my mid 2010 i3 iMac.
I read elsewhere that it has to do with the GPU used in early 2011 Mac portables and mid-2011 Mac desktops. Apparently the previous computers can do it, but it might suck up a lot of the processor. Instead of giving you some warning about it, Apple just disabled it. AirParrot does exactly the same thing. Why I have to spend $10 instead of just say "OK" on a warning is beyond me.
**** so airplay won't work on my late 09 MBP?, ****ing Apple this is pretty ridiculous my computer is 2 and a half years old and it can't fully run the new operating system.
Is ridiculous that not too old MACS can't do the mirroring.
Want to know if they have at least one tech reason to not allow it.
It's
How long until certain decent features won't run on Macs with those old hard disk drives and optical drives? Then I assume we won't be able to run other things because our crappy 1920x1080 resolution isn't Retina enough.
This is hardly the "we're not going to support this for the old AppleTV because it was a piece of crap that hardly worked and the new one is a whole lotta new hardware." It's some stupid itty bitty piece of firmware that keeps your CPU from getting used as much. Unless mirroring comes anywhere close to what HandBrake does -- take up every resource on your computer and the closest 10 others -- I just want to be able to check a box that says "I know it's not as good as the new computers, but I don't have another $1200 to spend before I even pay off this one."
Is ridiculous that not too old MACS can't do the mirroring.
Want to know if they have at least one tech reason to not allow it.
It's
IMO it's like Apple is trying to force people to upgrade their computers, kinda like when the iPhone 4s came out and only that phone could use siri when it would work just fine on the iPhone 4. I don't mind upgrading my computer every 4 maybe 3 years but to have to upgrade every 2 years to get all the features is kinda stupid.
No, it's a hardware h.264 encoder (sortof) in the processor that's needed, and an i3 doesn't have this.
Google 'Intel quick sync'.
Airplay requires hardware h.264 encoding. You can see how well your Mac can do it in software only by using AirParrot. Many people are not too happy with the performance.
Mac Pro users need not apply, your 8 core Mac Pro with 24gigs of ram is insufficient. Please upgrade.
yeah I agree my first mac was an older iMac one of those round base models with the moveable flat screen and I kpt it forever and never missed out on new operating system features, when I replaced it it was still running solid, this is what makes Macs so great and worth that higher price, if I'm going to have to upgrade my computer that cost $1500+ every 2 years now then this takes a lot of what made the mac so great. Not going to lie I'm pretty disappointed with the no AirPlay on any computer thats not a 2011+ model, it cuts out so many people.
Totally agree! its painfull. This throws out the idea of buying high end models of macs and future proofing idea absolete. It seems like you will be better of buying the lower end macs (within reason) and upgrading more frequently. This also makes buying a refurbish model less lucrative (in the past you could get a good computer that was not the latest and greatest for a discount, now the discount is still there but comes with bigger trade offs.
this is what bugs me is apple touts itself as a green company with an imac it does not work so much you basically have to get rid of a perfectly good monitor for new hardware (laptops with displays looking better)
will I buy more apple products? of course I will! But its definately a game changer on buying new product for reason listed above.
Fair point, Macs with quick sync all have an HD[34]000, but I'm not sure the reverse holds off the top of my head.
Either way it's the quick sync in the cpu doing it, not the igp.
No way.
I'm telling the opposite.
Macs became more efficients in the years than pcs. Performs a lot better.
My mac (mid 2007) is running perfect with ML, and i dont need to change it because of a couple features.
If Apple is going to pull stuff like this, perhaps some new port should be invented that will allow stupid small expansions like this. Something that's a cross between replacing a video card and replacing RAM. Considering the fact that my MacBook Pro died because of the stupid GPU and now this, maybe a user-replacable GPU down near the RAM would be smart. Or at least develop some dual-GPU technology that could have a backup or something. Apple has smart engineers. Figure it out since any idiot with a PC tower will smugly tell you "buy a new video card for $50." I don't mind all this integration most of the time. Those are a couple of times it has screwed me big time.
I wonder if someone will find a hack that would enable Airplay Mirroring on older processors as well.
This. If anyone knows of a hack, please post it. Airplay would work fine on my computer... I have a Mid 2010 MBP with a Core i5, 4 GB of RAM and a GT 330M w/ 512MB. There's absolutely no reason for this other than forcing people onto new hardware.
As one poster said earlier, this would be a good reason to buy cheaper Macs, more often. Not environmentally friendly, but it would actually be cheaper for me. So, Apple won't get another $2,600 purchase from me ever again. $1,000 Mac every two years instead of $2,600 every three.
They've already killed off the market in which I bought... 17" MBPs.
Agreed, this is lame. Nothing on this product page about it. One of the main reasons I upgraded, and it won't work on my MBP or my Mini. Really makes no sense to me -- if an iPad can do it, surely a fairly recent MBP should have enough processing power (and it's not just the i3 -- this is an i5).