Connect iPhone to Sony TV to watch programmes

[TobiasRieper315]

Hi 

I have a Sony Bravia Smart TV. I have iPhone 6s and wish to watch my Channel 4 App from phone to TV. There is a little 'wifi icon' on my iPhone that says 'connect to tv KD-55XD8599' at the top of my iPhone App. 

I connect and and it appears to 'mirror' or show the content to my tv i.e. in this case Ch4OD. However, the programme just freezes/hangs and my programme doesn't play.

Am I doing anything wrong, is there something else I need to do etc?

Many thanks

[kinggo01]

I can't since I'm not in UK. But app as such exist for android. And you have android TV which is capable of running android apps. So, even if the app is not available in playstore, you can google the apk, put that on the stick, plug it in, install (enable unknown sources under security and install some file manager to find the apk if you don't have one already) the app and see if it works. The playstore on TV has only apps certified for Android TV platform but you can install almost any other app via apk file. Will it work is another question. Most of the time they run just fine but they are not remote friendly or have the wrong orientation or..... But the point is that you can try that very easily.

And I can't help you with the iPhone since I don't use one. But from experience, casting from android is not a problem, mirroring my Z2 tablet is not a problem, using TV as secondary monitor under windows 10....... well, it works but it's not as straight forward as first two scenarios. So, maybe even iPhone works but it needs something special. After all, it's Apple style not to follow standards.

[TobiasRieper315]

Hi king,

Ah, ok, I see what you mean now. I'm learning fast with a bit of googling.  However, I think its a no go, look here at my screenshot when I went to Google Play Store to try and download the All4 App:

[Jecht_Sin]

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@TobiasRieper315 wrote:

Hi Jecht_Sin,

I was of the understanding that 'AirPlay' only works with Apple TV.

That little 'wifi' icon in the square, is that Googlecast, or is it just telling you that the device can be connected to another compatible device i.e. an Apple TV ?

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Ok, I see I probably contributed to make a bit of confusion. This is how it works:

1. The app(s) I mentioned make the Android TV compatible with AirPlay. After installing and enabling it I see my television as an AirPlay device from my Mac. I am quite sure it will be the same from your iPhone

2. Googlecast is somehow the Android equivalent of Apple's AirPlay. And as such I thought it didn't work with Apple's devices. I've never seen it my Mac, but I don't know about Apple's mobile devices. Then your app (Channel 4 if I remember correctly) shows its icon (the oblique WiFi logo in a box. That's Google Cast. Chromecast instead is the device connected via HDMI), it connects via Google Cast to the TV but then (and most likely because it isn't a native iOS protocol), sometime it fails.

So I suggested to try the route number 1 instead of route number 2. (the one you are currently using). Doing so you should be able to use an Android TV as if it was an Apple TV. At least for what regards the streaming of content from an iPhone or Mac to your television. It should be completely seamless and all iPhone apps should work without any extra configuration in the phone (the Android app in the TV, instead, has quite some settings. But you configure it once, make it running at boot and you're all done).

It isn't clear of bugs either (maybe it may disconnect or else), but from the little I tested from my Mac it worked.

PS: Here a picture of Google Cast. I googled it to be sure I was using the correct terminlogy:

[kinggo01]

@TobiasRieper315

don't go to playstore. If you are doing this on the TV browser then open up google.com and search for "all4 apk" and youll get a bunch of results. Find the latest version (check in playstore to see the number) and download that apk. Fire up some filmanager and that apk should be in your Downloads folder, select, install and see how it goes.