OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Using Home Sharing and AirPlay

Apple has been working for years to make the Mac and iOS devices—tied together via iTunes—the new entertainment library. As part of that effort, it provides several technologies that let you stream music and videos from Macs and iOS devices to TVs and speakers, as well as to rent videos via its iTunes Store for playback on TVs.

New Feature

OS X Mountain Lion can mirror your Mac's screen to your TV via AirPlay, similar to what an iPad 2 or later model can do.

Those technologies are Home Sharing, AirPlay, and Apple TV.

Using Home Sharing

The Home Sharing capability in iTunes on a Mac and built into iOS on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches lets each device share its music and videos with anyone else in wireless range. The key is that everyone needs to use the same Home Sharing account.

On any Mac (or PC) running iTunes, choose Advanced⇒Turn On Home Sharing, and enter a username and password. It does not have to be the same as your iTunes account username and password; in fact, it shouldn't be, so guests can sign into Home Sharing when visiting without them having your iTunes Store account sign-in information. (On an iOS device, go to the Settings app, tap either Music or Video from its Sidebar (on an iPad) or from its Settings list (on an iPhone or iPod Touch), and enter the username and password in the Home Sharing section.)

Everyone on the same Wi-Fi network who signs in with the same username and password can share their music and videos. In iTunes ...