Mountain Lion AirPlay Mirroring (iMac to AppleTV) Not Working

Afraid I'm another sucker. Bought ML and have just got Apple TV this afternoon and could not work out why it would not work on mirroring until I read this thread. Mac Pro is mid 2010. Guess what - back tomorrow to return Apple TV and will attempt get money bak for ML. I'm looking for tablet and two new smartpohnes. Android is beginning to look much better. I was a fan for Apple after getting my Mac 18 months ago, but now fell a bit stuck within a greedy and manipulative and deceptive brand/corporation. Time to move on. Apple - this sort of manipualtion will cost you in the long run. Treat your cutomers this way and they won't come back.

It is a matter of trust and honesty. The fact the best feature (mirroring) does not work, even though it is an advertised feature is the point. You are very correct though - time to go back to PCs and android!

The agent I spoke with was very helpful, however, he delievered some bad news: I was told you need an i5 processor or higher to run Airplay. Mac computers from mid-2010 have i3 processors, so I'm outta luck.

It's even worse than that! My max upgraded MacBook Pro: 17", 2.66 GHz i7, 8 GB RAM, 512 MB VRAM - the absolute strongest Apple laptop you could possibly configure in October 2010 - was $3,000 ... and already precluded from this feature.

The willingness to pay 3 x the cost of comparable models had a large 'future-proofing' element to it. Still less than two years old and already dropped from the upgrade path?? Heck my $300 thinkpad capably ran everything in the windows environment for over five years. TEN times more expensive and less than half the lifespan?

Apple marketing team must be aware that premium pricing and short product life cycle are not complementary strategies...are they just trying to see what they can get away with?

I have an i5 processor. In fact, as far as I can tell, because I upgraded so many things on my 2010 iMac, I have more than enough hardware to run the airplay mirroring, and I'm still being excluded solely on the date that I purchased my iMac (which was early 2011). Won't be buying another Mac simply on principle. Way to infuriate your loyal customers Apple. Hope you make lots of money, because that's what it's all about. Decency need not even be considered.

arogers77 wrote:

I agree, I feel cheated that I can not use this awesome function because my imac is more than 18 months old!

Apple please fix this.

Your Mac lacks the hardware required, the fix is to buy a new one.

Honest question: should 18 months be used as the expected duration for Apple laptop hardware to maintain full functionality? It's relevant to my future purchasing decisions and I'm really not very well informed on this subject.

I was quite angry when I first learned my 2010 MBP would not support this feature. Since doing some more reading about the subject I feel differently. This is a feature which the hardware does not support not something Apple withheld. I can't expect old hardware to have the same bells and whistles as the latest machines.

PS I downloaded Airparrot. I hate it. It's very laggy and was a total waste of money. If I want to view my laptop on my tv I'll connect it directly and use a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Wow! You really don't get it do you?

APPLE is in total control of how new OS's are designed. If THEY want it to be backwards compatible to both sets of chips it COULD be!

ALSO, if APPLE wanted to offer chip-set upgrades they COULD, even if they DIDN"T want to make the OS compatible for both CHIP SETS!!

And by the way, just becuase it was BUILT mid-2010 doesn't mean most people bought it >18 months ago. I bought mine last NOVEMBER and I already have a 27" iMac, which is too expensive for me to replace ANYTIME SOON- NINE MONTHS AND IT'S ALREADY OBSELETE TO NEW OS FEATURES!!!

I don't care how you slice it, that's not right!

dianafrommarietta wrote:

Wow! You really don't get it do you?

APPLE is in total control of how new OS's are designed. If THEY want it to be backwards compatible to both sets of chips it COULD be!

ALSO, if APPLE wanted to offer chip-set upgrades they COULD, even if they DIDN"T want to make the OS compatible for both CHIP SETS!!

And by the way, just becuase it was BUILT mid-2010 doesn't mean most people bought it >18 months ago. I bought mine last NOVEMBER and I already have a 27" iMac, which is too expensive for me to replace ANYTIME SOON- NINE MONTHS AND IT'S ALREADY OBSELETE TO NEW OS FEATURES!!!

I don't care how you slice it, that's not right!

If you disagree with Apple's policies so vehemently why do you purchase their products?

Believe me ,I'm done. I started because job gave me iPad. Then got iPhone to sync emails. Then got son iMac for XMAS so they would ALL sync up. Then got ATV because of air play feature but slowly found out all the exceptions... And so on...Now Mountain Lion is the straw that broke the Camel's back!

Your iPad and iPhone support AirPlay yes, but so does your Mac. AirPlay works for most macs through iTunes, but this is not the same as AirPlay mirroring. You see, streaming a single piece of content through iTunes requires not that much in the way of hardware power. Streaming your entire desktop and using your computer at the same time requires a LOT more power and that's where intel Sync comes into the mix. Your iPad, iPhone, iWhatever can stream content but only the iPad (I have a 3rd gen, so I don't know about the other 2 generations) can do mirroring. I don't know the technicals behind that, however. I hope this helps you understand.

[quote]

sgaske - this IS all about customer expectation management. This is not just 45 pages of idiots ranting.

I know some on this forum are technically savvy / 'geeks', but these days Apple is very much a company catering to the mass market of consumers. And for these Apple customers (the vast majority), one of the key things that encourages them to buy Apple's, arguably technically superior, but unarguably more expensive products is that they believe that Apple products simply work and that Apple is not one of those companies that hides behind the small print.

I am not a geek but I do understand the technical limitation, and I still feel let down. Why? Because Apple misled me on this one. I'm not sure I subscribe to the conspiracy theories re forcing us into hardware upgrades - its more likely that Apple simply dropped the ball on this one and didn't think through the customer expectations properly.

The cynics will argue that we should expect nothing less from a huge public company. But one of the things that has defined Apple to date has been the loyalty they engender within their customer base. Incidents like this cannot help but undermine that loyalty and trust. For Apple's sake, I hope somebody is listening.

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I completely agree with your point that Apple misled us as consumers. Also, as users of Apple products, we expect them to work, especially considering the premium we pay.

This is indeed, however, 45 (now 56) pages of people ranting. You said idiots though, not me. :)

I May have used Air Play as an all-encompassing term but I do understand the difference. The mac has the air play symbol and networks with the other air play devices but no mirroring that allows viewing flash video only accessible through the mac. Not the iPhone and not the iPad2 I have. I can't mirror anything additional to just playing the ATV THROUGH the TV. NO Amazon video to stream my Breaking Bad videos for example. I could view Internet content with the Mac.

So while I'm not a tech geek I do represent the fairly well-informed lay person who can understand when they've been marketed to in an above- board manner and when the "new guard" is taking a different and all to familiar path. At least Microsoft has more compatibility along with their sometimes distasteful marketing tactics.

And I wouldn't even care if you couldn't use the Mac at the same time, if you could even get on a website, cue up what you want to stream, then click Mirror ...I would be happy. So you couldn't surf around different apps, no buggy. Just give me access to one site streaming at a time and I would settle for that happily. If I had to reconnect going to a different website at least that would be SOMETHING.

I'v been talking to a few people lately who agree that apple products become obsolete far to soon and we are going to stop buying apple products because it is so obvious this is a money making stategy, my mac is new but cant support mirroring because it is to old..... i am just hoping someone will create an app soon enough for my new but old mac.