Want to stream music from your smartphone to a set of high quality speakers, but don’t want to use Bluetooth and don’t have an iPhone with AirPlay support? Qualcomm is launching its own wireless audio streaming protocol called AllPlay.
You can use it to stream music or other content from supported apps and devices to wireless speakers around your house.
While that does sound like something you could do with a simple Bluetooth speaker, AllPlay does have a few neat tricks such as the ability to play music from different apps on different speakers while setting different volumes for each.
Unfortunately you’ll need speakers or other audio equipment that supports AllPlay in order to do that. Compatible hardware is set to launch later this year.
Qualcomm will make the AllPlay software developer kit available for iOS and Android apps, and one of the first companies to support the protocol is music streaming service Rhapsody.
Meanwhile streaming music-on-demand provider Spotify is pushing its own protocol, Spotify Connect.
yay Sonos competition! Finally!