Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wanted to watch a movie on your iMac or MacBook and the audio wasn't good enough, or the computer is too far away? It is true that you can always use headphones, but if there are several people, that may not be the best option.
Well, it turns out that you can use your iPhone as a wireless speaker for your MacBook. All you need is a WiFi network and a simple application that I am going to tell you about now. If you want to learn how to use an iPhone as an external speaker for your Mac, keep reading this article. Go for it!
How to listen to Mac audio on your iPhone
In order to do this task, We are going to use an application called Airfoil. The application has two separate versions to send and receive the audio signals. One is used to transmit the audio signal from a device, while another is used to receive an audio signal.
This application allows us to use the iPhone as a Mac speaker, or also transmit audio from other devices such as chromecast or Apple TV, as long as they are connected to the same WiFi network.
Download the Airfoil Satellite app on iPhone
Download the Airfoil Satellite app on your iPhone from Apple . The iOS application can be downloaded for free and for now, at least at the time of writing this article, There are no ads or paid versions for the iOS app.
Download the Airfoil app on Mac
Now, of course, you also have to download the companion app on your Mac. Once downloaded, open the folder named Airfoil. The macOS app is a trial version and comes with a ten-minute per session limitation. After ten minutes, the sound quality deteriorates a little, but it continues.
Product not foundConnecting the two devices
The moment a macOS app is detected, the Airfoil Satellite app on your iPhone will show you available devices. Please note that for the app to detect other devices, Your devices must be on the same Wi-Fi network.
Start audio signal transmission
In your macOS Airfoil app, click on Speakers and you should be able to see your iPhone's name in the list. Select your iPhone from this list.
Additionally, you can also tap the small computer icon at the top right of the iPhone app. If you're not already receiving audio, you can tap Receive Audio on this screen to manually enable streaming. This is useful if you're already sitting on the couch, separated from your MacBook.
Choose the font
Although your devices have already established a connection, you still need to select a source for your audio. The previous steps have made a connection between the two devices, and the output device is set to be your iPhone. But the macOS app offers multiple sources to stream your Mac's audio to your iPhone, or any other output device.
In your macOS app, click Font at the top of the window and select an audio source.
Additionally, you can also choose the font of your iOS app. Just tap Font at the top of the screen.
ACE installation
Once you select a source, for example, Safari, the macOS app will ask you for an additional installation requirement of an audio capture engine.
Click install ACE and you will see another pop-up window that briefly tells you what ACE is and how it helps you. Then click install in this window as well and ACE will be installed. It's a small thing, like a patch, so it barely takes a second to put into place, all automatic.
Activating audio on iPhone
Now, here is a slightly complicated part, but don't worry, as always I will try to explain it to you in the simplest way possible. So many tabs open in both versions of the app are probably confusing you and you will have a hard time figuring out how to get the audio on iPhone finally.
Here's a tip. Simply now on your iPhone, you need to search for Airplay devices. Those are the devices you can stream audio to. Tap the name of your iPhone in this menu and you will start receiving audio without any delay. It works quite well.
Similarly, you can also do it another way, you can select and activate a receiving device from your macOS. This is where you have to look. Simply click the small speaker icon in front of each device name to activate it. And that would be it!
It may have sounded or seemed a little more complicated than it is in writing, but once you get to it, you will see that the process is easy.
Conclusion
That being said, go ahead and fix it. In case you have an issue that I haven't covered here, let me know in the comments below and I'll get back to you soon.