Mobile phones are great for storing and playing music, but you usually need to choose between plugging in your headphones or locking your iPhone into a dock. It's still handy, but not as handy as taking out your iPhone, pressing a button, and filling the room with sound. Fortunately, wireless technology has some useful options that let you do just that, thanks to the magic of Apple's AirPlay technology and Bluetooth A2DP.

AirPlay is Apple's wireless audio feature that lets iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Mac users stream their iTunes libraries to any AirPlay-enabled speaker. It can simultaneously stream music to multiple speakers, and sends information about the track to any display on the speaker. It's a feature-rich wireless audio system for any iPhone or Mac user, but it only works with Apple products as players. You can't, say, stream music to an AirPlay speaker from your Android or your BlackBerry. AirPlay speakers also tend to be more expensive than Bluetooth speakers, and most are significantly bulkier and power-hungry, meaning you're less likely to find a battery-powered one you can pick up and carry from room to room while listening.

Bluetooth A2DP is the longer-established wireless streaming system that doesn't have quite as many features as AirPlay, but supports many more devices. Bluetooth works by pairing, so a device can only stream to one speaker at a time. While AirPlay can send other information to devices, like song metadata, the Bluetooth A2DP profile can only send audio streams to a device. The bright side of Bluetooth A2DP is that it works with nearly every mobile device and most computers, including the iPhone 4S. Bluetooth speakers also tend to be much less expensive than AirPlay speakers, and many Bluetooth speakers can run on rechargeable batteries, making them easier to carry around the house or set up outside.

While quality was an issue with earlier wireless speakers, both Bluetooth and AirPlay have become very solid technologies for streaming high-quality audio. Neither is perfect, however, and serious audiophiles should probably stick to higher-end wired speakers. For the majority of listeners, though, the convenience of wireless listening is worth the tradeoff.

Source - [ pcmag.com ]