With the launch of YouTube Gaming earlier this year, Google’s Twitch competitor that lets users live stream and watch gameplay videos on YouTube, users can now live stream and browse gameplay videos on YouTube from dedicated apps. Google first enabled live streaming the desktop, and today announced plans for Android, but an update to the popular AirServer app is taking advantage of the lack of iOS streaming support by enabling users to live stream directly to YouTube from their iOS devices.
Google does have a YouTube Gaming app or iOS, but it currently only acts as a community-style app for letting users access live streams and recorded gameplay videos from their iPhone or iPad. AirServer, however, tells us it collaborated with YouTube to enable streaming from iOS apps using its mirroring technology:
“People are already using AirServer to live stream to various sites through third party solutions. We are delighted to provide this feature directly in AirServer in collaboration with YouTube,” said Pratik Kumar, CEO and founder of App Dynamic. “Gamers can now stream their favorite iOS games in real-time while educators providing distance learning will also benefit from the new streaming functionality.”
And in addition to the YouTube streaming support, AirServer is getting a big overhaul for iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan that takes advantage of Apple’s rewritten AirPlay protocol. We reported previously that Apple has overhauled its AirPlay technology with iOS 9 allowing for major performance and security improvements with mirroring apps. AirServer confirmed the details in our report and noted that the improved AirPlay protocol has allowed for higher-quality, Retina-level mirroring and recording. Here’s the rundown:
Retina quality mirroring: With the combination of the new Apple TV protocol + iOS 9 devices, we were able to get a much higher resolution over mirroring. The new protocol is also very smart as it communicates the EDID of the screen down to the iOS device so it can optimize the mirroring resolution… Ultra high quality recording: With the new high resolution mirroring, we are able to output higher pixels per frame than even QuickTime’s iOS recording feature, which uses a usb-lightning cable. We also support support rotation during recording, which Quicktime does not.
The improved AirPlay protocol also allows for enhanced security and encryption with the updated app. The developer explained that, “the additional AirPlay encryption that we added in this update was always a part of the original design but we are the first to implement it, apart from Apple. People using products other than AirServer or Apple TV are susceptible to network sniffing and can have their personal photos and videos intercepted when sent over AirPlay.”
And lastly, the updated app introduces El Capitan support with the rewritten AirPlay protocol for streaming video directly from Safari.
The updated AirServer app is available now.
