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Mountain Lion AirPlay Mirroring (iMac to AppleTV) Not Working

Mountain Lion successfully installed on my iMac.


AppleTV sucessfully networked with my iMac (at least where iTunes and iPhoto are concerned.)


But AirPlay icon is NOT appearing in my menu bar. Any clues as to why this is?


In System Preferences, I've checked "Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available" but still nothing.


Below is a screenshot of my menu bar. Thanks in advance!




User uploaded file

Posted on Jul 25, 2012 9:13 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 25, 2012 9:16 AM

Never mind. Just realized my iMac is too old. Late 2009.


AirPlay will only work for mid 2011. 😟

1,096 replies

Jul 25, 2012 9:38 PM in response to jcetheredge

I find it hard to believe this is truly a hardware limitation as much as it is a feature restriction. I have a 2008 8x3.0Ghz MacPro with the ATI 5870 card in it. I benchmark faster than all of the current laptops apple produces on most everything but hard drive based tests. To say that a MacPro cannot even AirPlay to a 720p AppleTV is shameful. It will simply be a matter of time before a hack is enabled. *NIX wizes might make a bit of street cred for enabling this.

Jul 25, 2012 10:13 PM in response to jcetheredge

AirPlay mirroring is a very CPU intensive process, as the data stream is encrypted, and encoded with an algorythm that can reproduce the video at a very high quality, and audio in it's original stereo.


I would expect this feature to require a computer with adequate CPU but for performance, I would expect that apple is probably taking advantage the Open-CL that was added to Snow Leopard for a lot of the encoding math. I don't know this to be the case, but looking at the list of supported macs, it would seem that the issue has to do with the video processor's capabilities for OpenCL.


It will be interesting to see apple's resonse.

Jul 25, 2012 10:21 PM in response to bobwolfsburg

That's not fair. to Steve or Apple.


Apple has a long history of only providing advanced features on the more advanced machines. This is not a con/sans steve jobs issue. Look at all the iphones.. Does the 4 support Siri? Does the 3Gs support facetime? Apple produces great software, because they are not affraid to drop support for older systems, or to limit the newer features to only the most recent generations of hardware, while still providing major operating system updates for the older systems.



With that said, I have a 2010 mac book unibody (poly carbonate). I was under the impression this model would be support air play mirror, and it doesnt. I'm dissapointed, but I realize that my laptop would be very hot trying to stream it's video and audio in realtime. All that heat would shorten my macbooks life span, so I will only use air play mirroring on my 2012 mac mini instead.

Jul 25, 2012 10:23 PM in response to jcetheredge

Add me to the long list of, not just disappointed, but pi$$ed off users. The most highly anticipated feature of ML, and your Mac has to be barely a year old to be able to use it. Unbelievable.


The way notification of the limitation is buried on a feature page, in miniscule font at the bottom of a seemingly endless page is ridiculous. I checked my computer for compatibility with ML before I downloaded, little did I think I had to go through feature by feature to see which were compatible and which weren't.


Apple likes to dis Android for its fragmentation. This is pretty much the same thing, Apple style. You can upgrade to the latest OS so that the adoption levels look great, you just can't use some of its best features. Not impressed!

Jul 25, 2012 10:47 PM in response to jcetheredge

Like so many posting on this forum, I anticpated ML and Airplay for ages, checking every day to see when ML would be available. I was delighted that it was finally available today, but my hopes for streaming video to my ATV turned to dust when I couldn't find the Airplay icon and instead found this page, troubleshooting on the internet.


Even if the limitation was buried in the fine print, it's just not good enough. It is such a crucial limitation to the functionality of the OS that purchasers should have been specifically alerted to this before downloading. I am hoping for a fix or a refund. But if neither is forthcoming, it's such a weasly marketing con, that Windows 8 suddenly appears a contender for the next upgrade.


To say I feel disappointed and sorely let down barely covers it. My expectation of Apple service is elelvated based on many years of contented use. Apple has lost its halo for me today and is now just a company (mis)selling computers and software.

Mountain Lion AirPlay Mirroring (iMac to AppleTV) Not Working

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