Posted By Paul Kafasis on February 12th, 2012

With the latest versions of iOS, it’s possible to send audio directly from an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad out to AirPlay devices like an Apple TV or AirPort Express. You can now beam music directly from most apps out to a stereo or TV and that’s very cool. However, if you’ve used this functionality, you know it has one big drawback – it can’t send to multiple outputs! After many requests for help with this, I’ve written up a great workaround for this shortcoming. Using Airfoil and Airfoil Speakers, it’s possible to send audio from iOS to multiple outputs.

Due to Apple’s restrictions, we can’t do anything directly in iOS to provide this functionality. The AirPlay picker in iOS (seen below) will only allow you to select one audio output, and we can’t improve that directly. But with a simple two-step process, we can work around it to send audio to multiple devices.

Instead of sending from iOS to multiple outputs, we’ll send from iOS to a Mac or PC running Airfoil Speakers¹, then use Airfoil running on that same machine to send to multiple outputs.

Audio flows from the iOS device to the computer, via Airfoil Speakers. It’s then captured by Airfoil and sent out to multiple outputs.

Need a quick walkthrough? Let’s go:

Step 1: Send from iOS to your computer

First up, be sure you’ve got the latest versions of Airfoil and Airfoil Speakers installed on your Mac or PC. Then, launch both applications on the same machine. On the iOS device, tap the AirPlay icon in the audio app you’re using. The Airfoil Speakers instance you just launched will appear as an output option, and you can choose it. Below, we’re sending from an iPhone to Airfoil Speakers running on a MacBook Air:

And here, we see Airfoil Speakers on the MacBook Air, receiving the audio stream from the iPhone:

Step 2: Send from your Mac or PC to all your audio outputs

With the audio flowing from the iOS device to our Mac, we’re halfway to sending that audio to multiple outputs. The feat is ultimately accomplished with the help of Airfoil. In Airfoil, simply select Airfoil Speakers as your audio source, then transmit to any outputs you like. Below, you can see that the audio originally from the iPhone is being pulled from Airfoil Speakers and sent out to an Apple TV and an AirPort Express:

Now, the audio from the iPhone is being heard throughout the house, via multiple audio outputs. Nice!

Enjoy

By sending audio from iOS to your Mac or PC running Airfoil Speakers, then capturing Airfoil Speakers with Airfoil, and broadcasting it out, you can send audio from one iOS device out to multiple speakers via AirPlay. Happy listening!

Footnotes:

1. Don’t remember Airfoil Speakers? It’s the free companion to Airfoil, which lets you turn any computer into an audio receiver for Airfoil. Airfoil Speakers is part of the Airfoil download, but you can also download stand-alone versions here. ↩