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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 26, 2012 4:52 AM in response to jcetheredge

I can't add anything new that hasn't already been said before. But like everyone before me I wanted to vent my frustration and join the growing chorus of angry voices in the hope that Apple may do something about this.


Of the various features of Mountain Lion, Airplay Mirroring was the one thing I was waiting on. It offered a really nice feature that was going to benefit my household well.


I appreciate that companies can't support legacy hardware for ever. However a Mid 2010 iMac is hardly legacy, particularly given it runs an i7 processor which is only now becoming standard. One of Apple's major selling points and what differentiate it from a PC is the longer lifecycle of Apple hardware. Apple's move to only allow some of the most desired features of its new OSX on the latest machines suggests they are trying to shorten the lifecycle and force people to replace hardware sooner.


So yes, as it turns out it is in the fine print tucked away way down at the bottom of the page. If that fine print was immediately below the section promoting Airplay Mirroring and easy to see prior to release, I would have been disappointed. But I would have probably dealt with it and moved on. Finding out by trying to use the one key feature I wanted, only to discover its not available to me. Like everyone else here I feel quite decevied.


I'm sure there are a lot of great features in Mountain Lion, however this has left a sour tast in my mouth.

Jul 26, 2012 5:18 AM in response to jcetheredge

meh - bit of a shame but if its because of a hardware feature I don't have on my mid 2010 mac I guess I can't complain.


Yes there are other ways to make it work and other apps that can be bought but I bet the official way is allows for more content to be streamed without crippling the machine as much.


So I will look at the parrot one, and to all the people complaining about a $20 os upgrade.. bore off. its 20 bucks.

Jul 26, 2012 5:30 AM in response to jcetheredge

come on DB2K we are not complainig about 20 bucks, we are complaining about the fact that we are being geared towards getting new hardware when its not even 2 years old (like in my case and yours). We bought ML just for the Airplay feature and we feel let down by whom we were loyal to.


Look at it like this, you buy an app on the App store and it doesnt work at all, do you say "meh, its only 20 bucks"?

Jul 26, 2012 5:39 AM in response to jcetheredge

Appears it's a hardware issue.....so we're going to have to live with it.


Note to self, always read the small print especially now that we're dealing with Applesoft. Knowing you can't get it (with an explanation) is better than believing you can and then being disappointed. Thanks Applesoft....another lesson in trust, reading the small print and marketing practice well learnt. Well done you. 😐

Jul 26, 2012 5:40 AM in response to jcetheredge

Well it's quite clear from the system requirements page,

http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/


However it's obviously disappointing.


The reason is detailed here:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/14/inside_os_x_108_mountain_lion_gm_a irplay_mirroring.html


I guess the quality of image/computer speed you have when airplaying wasn't fast enought by apple standard...


I'm not too worried, I'm sure there will soon be a little hack to enable the feature...



BTW, they never enabled Siri for anything else than the 4S...

Jul 26, 2012 5:55 AM in response to jcetheredge

Add me to the list of incredibly disappointed customers 😟 I specifically bought an apple tv 3 a month ago anticipating this feature. I have a late 2010 iMac with an i7 processor and 16gb of ram. I honestly thought I would have no problems using this feature. Yes if you went specificially looking for it you could find out what was compatible in a small line in the requirements. Still very annoyed over it though. Airparrot is going to make a killing and apple it seems like apple is trying to drive people to buy the new hardware. I know its supposedly a hardware limitation but I am sure the geniuses at apple could have come up with some work around, software etc.

Jul 26, 2012 6:00 AM in response to jcetheredge

This is kind of a big deal, reading through everyones posts it seems like a lot of people were ripped off yesterday (launch day of mountain lion). I too am a victim of apple's shenanigans, this is exactly why I chose not to keep my business with apple when purchasing a smartphone. I saw similiar things with the iphone i.e. siri on the 4s but not the 4??? So I purchased a droid instead. I don't think i'll go as far to say i'll purchase a pc but my loyalty to apple has diminished and i wont be recommending apple to co-workers, friends, and customers of mine like I used to.


You need to fix this apple, listen to your loyal customers and fix this, if airparrot can find out a way to give us screen sharing through 3rd party software apple can also. So that says one thing when they do this, "we don't continue to support our products after 18months" so the fact that apple computers last much longer than typical pc's really isn't as much as an advantage if they withold features from there loyal customers.

Mountain Lion AirPlay Mirroring (iMac to AppleTV) Not Working

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