How to Mirror or Stream iPhone Display or Media to TV

It’s ironic how the biggest display in our homes nowadays is the one that most often goes without use, isn’t it? With the technology getting smaller and smaller, you’d think by now we would have also figured out a way to truly take advantage of all the screen space a television has to offer.

Nothing’s quite revolutionized the TV yet, but small steps are helping to breathe new life into that giant black square in your living room. One of which is to broadcast content on your iPhone/iPad directly onto your television, whether it’s to watch shows and movies you’re streaming or even play games, make presentationswith other apps or browse Facebook in the big screen. There are a number of ways to easily accomplish this.

So, here’s how you can quickly enable enable screen mirroring on your iPhone

Here’s a cool deal on the 3rd generation Apple TV and Fire TV Stick on Amazon if you are planning to buy one.

Stream Using AirPlay and Apple TV

The first solution for streaming your display or media from your iPhone is to just use Apple’s AirPlay, built right in iOS. This includes devices like the iPad and iPod Touch as well, as long as they’re up to date and support AirPlay. The feature can beam media content you’re watching instantly to your TV screen, while your iPhone acts as a remote.

To use AirPlay, you need an Apple TV hooked up to your current television. It’s a small set-top box Apple sells for $69 that has some content of its own from iTunes, iCloud, and third-party media apps as well. For this situation though, we want it for the AirPlay receiver.

When your Apple TV is plugged in and connected to the same Wi-Fi network as your iPhone, slide up from below the iPhone’s display to bring up the Control Center. Here, tap AirPlay Mirroring.

Select your Apple TV from the list of available devices (other devices might include speakers and headphones for audio playback or perhaps even your own Windows PC) and let the magic happen. If you’re listening to music or watching a video, within seconds it should appear on your television display.

Cool Tip: Notice that when you select Apple TV

The good thing about this method is that it’d work seamlessly for mirroring your iPad’s screen as well.

Stream to Other Devices Using Chromecast

To get media content wirelessly to your television without an Apple TV, try using Chromecast streaming. Chromecast is Google’s open streaming format that’s supported on a number of devices like Google’s own Chromecast stick and Amazon Fire TV. Popular apps like YouTube and Netflix support Chromecast streaming.

The perk is that many of the devices you need for your television with Chromecast streaming are far cheaper than the Apple TV: Chromecast is just $35 and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick is $39. The downside is that these do not support device mirroring, so you can’t broadcast your iPhone home screen or apps outside of music and video content.

Cool Tip: You can, however, do this on Android. Check out our Ultimate Guide on how to mirror displays with Chromecast

Again, whichever Chromecast device you use must connect to the same Wi-Fi network as your iPhone. Then, simply look for the wireless broadcast icon in your preferred app. Tap it, and choose the device you want to stream to.

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Screen Mirroring Using HDMI

If you’re trying to kick in old school, you can ditch wireless streaming altogether and just use HDMI to mirror your iPhone display to your television.

There’s an important catch though: the iPhone doesn’t support HDMI out of the box. To use an HDMI cable with an iPhone (or any iOS device) you need the Lightning Digital AV adapter Apple sells for a whopping $50. This supports all iOS devices with a Lightning connector, usually 2012 or later.

Buy the Lightning Digital AV adapter in Amazon for $39.99.

HDMI cable, via Shutterstock

From there, just plug the adapter in to your Lightning port, then your HDMI cable into the adapter. Insert the other side into the HDMI port on your television. Unless you have a particularly long cable, using HDMI for mirroring generally requires your device to be close to the TV. 

It’s definitely a more clunky method for mirroring, but effective for presentations and the like. Plus, HDMI doesn’t require an Internet connection. Having done that, you might have to pick from the HDMI inputs on your TV Screen.

Which One is The One?

So, whether you have the high-end Apple TV or one of the cool ones from Samsung or Sony, enabling the screen mirroring option on your iPhone/iPad is rather an easy affair. All you have to do is follow the simple steps and Voila! The device screen will be broadcasted to the TV screen.

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