MagicPlay brings native Apple AirPlay support to Play Music on rooted devices

MagicPlay—another app from the doubleTwist developers—brings support for Apple’s AirPlay to any Android device running Android 4.1, allowing content to be streamed to an Apple TV connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the phone. If you aren’t rooted, a separate app will enable you to stream your music and videos to an Apple TV or compatible set of speakers from doubleTwist, but you won’t be able to use these features within the Play Music app itself.

If your device is rooted, however, MagicPlay now adds an option to stream your content via AirPlay from the Play Music app. This feature, added in the 1.1 update that was released today, was announced by doubleTwist in a blog post today. MagicPlay now takes advantage of an API normally reserved for the Chromecast:

In Android 4.1 Google introduced a system-wide plugin API for streaming devices. Originally developed for the Nexus Q, Google now uses the API for their Chromecast device. The same API was also recently used by Sonos to enable the Google Play Music app to stream cloud music to Sonos devices.

Today we released an “AirPlay for Android” package that adds an AirPlay music streaming plugin using this new API. Applications that take advantage of Android’s new plugin API automatically gain AirPlay music support when our plugin is installed. This includes Google Play Music, with one caveat: the Google Play Music app is currently using a whitelist and filtering out plugins other than Nexus Q and Sonos. If your device is rooted, we automatically patch the whitelist so that you can enjoy your Google cloud music on your favorite AirPlay device.

Instructions:

1. Install the doubleTwist AirPlay for Android package
2. Launch the Google Play Music app and tap the Cast (streaming) button
3. Grant root access when prompted (this patches the plugin whitelist)
4. Force stop the Google Play Music app and relaunch it
5. AirPlay devices on your WiFi network should now appear when tapping Cast

Apple is unlikely to have an issue with this, as the AirPlay spec has been ported to other devices in the past. However, Google may have a problem with this program using root privileges to change the behavior of a stock program — as such, if you’re interested in this feature, it may be smart to jump on the download quickly, in case the update is pulled. MagicPlay is $2.99 in the Play Store.