Q: no Airplay Icon

How old is your Mac? Only 2011 models are supported as well as apple TV 2nd generation I believe.

Most likely AirPlay Mirroring is not supported on your laptop. I ran into this as well. See the short list of supported machines in http://support.apple.com/kb/SP654.

AirPlay Mirroring requires a second-generation Apple TV or later, and is supported on the following Mac models: iMac (Mid 2011 or newer), Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer), MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer), and MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer).

Apple TV (2nd and 3rd gen)- How to use AirPlay Mirroring

How to set up and configure AirPort Express for AirPlay and iTunes

Troubleshooting AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring

Using AirPlay

You could try downloading AirParrot. Make sure you get at least version 1.4.1 which is compatible with Mountain Lion. The trial works for 20 minutes at a time, so you have plenty of time to play with it.

I bought my iMac this year, but it's a refurb from 2010, so it doesn't have it either...

for me the fix was to change my active apple id to the one I had set up for homeshare on the appleTV...now it works like a charm

I cant believe this!! My iMac is 2010 and have 1st gen apple TV!! Not happy

1st gen AppleTV would have killed it anyway even if your imac was supported.

ahh yes so it would!!

NayiMac wrote:

 

ahh yes so it would!!

It may be old, but there are still things it'll do that neither ATV2 or ATV3 will.

AC

I tried AirParrot and it works on my 2010 macbook pro with mountain lion installed - I ended buying a license from AirParrot for $9.99 - now the real question for Apple is that why AirParrot can Airplay with Macbook pro 2010 to 2nd Gen Apple TV but with Mountain Lion you can't.....so it's not a hardware issue - more software restriction issue....

It's a hardware issue. The newer Macs which support AirPlay Mirroring have hardware acceleration for video encoding. AirParrot does essentially the same thing in software. It will work on the older Mac models, but it increases the CPU load.

Well - any application would increase the cpu load for any pc and if you're running single core pc(netbook) this would be an issue....any core 2 duo pc can handle multi-tasking(mirroring) and I feel that the Mountain Lion requirements for mirroring should have been extended far back 2007 macbook pros(core 2 duo)...I don't see the lag using AirParrot(watching HULU) while I work on my macbook pro w/mountain lion....

sorry :-(