Being that Smartglass is a precise clone of Apple Airplay, I think it needs to be interpreted as a response to Apple capabilities in cross-device media sharing.
Airplay is exceedingly simple. There is no prior setup, no sync, no user-visible state transfer, no unnecessary session management, it handles multiple users properly, it backgrounds well on iOS, and authentication is "free" since all that's handled at the Wifi layer.
When you see people in wizzy concept videos flicking content from one device to another, this is what they're doing. The only thing they get wrong in these futuristic videos is that this stuff has been shipping for the last two years on a major platform.
I was thinking the same thing and was baffled by all this wii-u talk. Air play is a really neat feature I've been jealous of with my Android devices. If they are able to provide a similar experience using the xbox i already own and my computers/ipad/android phone, i'm really excited. Waiting game for now i guess.
To be fair, it is not a precise clone. While the play-to feature is the same, to my knowledge, Apple does not allow in-game and in-movie tie ins. Plus, it allows your phone to act as an extender of sorts. To me, this is the coolest feature.
Negatory, good sir. AirPlay's got that covered too. As of late you can do multiple drawable screens and choose which one to chuck down the AirPlay encoding hole, as long as your CPU/GPU can feed both. Microsoft is just making this feature more explicit.
Yup - while I am a GIANT AirPlay nerd, the interactions between the second screen and the main display is the big feature of this. Unless this handles "I am watching YouTube on my iPad and want it bigger" better than AirPlay (which is doubtful, as the Apple Halo is much tighter than MSFTs), AirPlay still wins that scenario, and this wins the gaming/movies/second screen world.
It's one of those "I'm living in the future" things. You're sitting there, browsing your iPad while your wife is across the room reading or whatever. "Hey honey, check this out" and with the press of a button the youtube video you want to share is on the TV, where she can see it.
Airplay is exceedingly simple. There is no prior setup, no sync, no user-visible state transfer, no unnecessary session management, it handles multiple users properly, it backgrounds well on iOS, and authentication is "free" since all that's handled at the Wifi layer.
When you see people in wizzy concept videos flicking content from one device to another, this is what they're doing. The only thing they get wrong in these futuristic videos is that this stuff has been shipping for the last two years on a major platform.
Microsoft was correct to clone this.