How to Use iPhone as Speaker For Mac.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wanted to watch a movie on your iMac or MacBook without getting out of bed while your significant other sleeps? Now, of course, it is possible to use a monitor headset with an uncomfortably long cord, or even Bluetooth headphones. But what if you don’t have them. Well, it turns out you can use your iPhone as a wireless speaker for Mac. All you need is a Wi-Fi network and a simple app. Follow the steps to get audio from Mac to iPhone.
How to listen to Mac audio on your iPhone
Here we are going to use an application called Airfoil. The app has two separate versions for sending and receiving audio signals. Airfoil is used to transmit audio from one device and Airfoil Satellite is used to receive audio. Let’s start.
Step 1: Download the app
Download the Airfoil Satellite app to your iPhone. The iOS app is free to download and the last time I checked there are no ads or paid versions for the iOS app at all.
Now, of course, the app searches for its companion app on macOS, so download the Airfoil app for macOS. The macOS app is a trial version and is limited to ten minutes per session. After ten minutes, the sound quality degrades somewhat, but continues.
The second step: connect the two devices
When the macOS app is found, the Airfoil Satellite app on your iPhone will show you the available devices. Please note that for the app to be able to detect other devices, your devices must be on the same Wi-Fi network.
Step 3: start sending the audio signal
In the macOS Airfoil app, click Speakers and you’ll see your iPhone’s name listed. Choose your iPhone from this list.
Alternatively, you can click on the small computer icon in the upper right corner of the iPhone app. If you are not already receiving audio, you can click Get Audio on this screen to manually enable transmission. This comes in handy if you’re already some distance from your iMac.
Step 4: choose the source
Although your devices have already established a connection, you still need to select your audio source. The above steps have established a connection between the two devices and your iPhone will be installed as the output device. But the macOS app offers several sources for streaming audio from your Mac to iPhone.
In the macOS app, click Source at the top of the window and select a sound source.
Alternatively, you can also select the source from your iOS app. Just click on Source at the top of the screen.
Step 5: install ACE
After you select a source, such as Safari, the macOS app will suggest further requirements for installing the audio capture engine.
Click Install ACE and you will see another popup that briefly tells you what ACE is and how it helps. Go ahead and also click “Install” on this window and you will have ACE installed. It’s a tiny piece that looks like a patch, so it doesn’t take seconds to put it back in place.
Step 6: activate audio on iPhone
Now for a little trick. So many tabs in both versions of the app will probably confuse you and it will be difficult for you to figure out how to finally get audio on iPhone. Here’s a hint. On your iPhone, you need to look for Airplay devices. These are the devices that you can stream audio to. Click on your iPhone’s name in this menu and you will start receiving audio without lag. At least it worked well enough for us.
Similarly, you can also select and activate the receiving device in macOS. This is where to look. Click on the small speaker icon in front of the name of each device to activate it.
Listen to MacBook Audio on your iPhone
So follow these steps and you’ll definitely use this feature someday. If you use it quite often, you might even consider purchasing an app. A one-time license key for a macOS app costs about $ 35 and can be used on multiple machines, but for a single user. Upgrading in the future will cost around $ 18. Considering the price shown in the picture, I think it should really be helpful to you to make such a purchase.
However, go ahead and customize it. If you have an issue that I haven’t covered here, let me know in the comments below and I’ll get back to you shortly.
Read: How to Use an iPhone as a Wireless Microphone for Mac