We've had Apple TV in school for a while now, starting with a little network set up using an airport express to create a wireless network and an apple TV plugged in to the network. This worked perfectly well on a small scale in a single classroom with a set of iPads. The future is bigger though. Our new building will see the death of the interactive whiteboard and see every classroom fitted out with LCD screens with Apple TV attached. There are many stories of Apple TV deployment causing havoc on networks (and other success stories too) but the latest Apple TV (model A1469, the second release of the second generation). This is now able to use the built in bluetooth, previously only useful for wireless keyboard connection, for peer to peer connection. This means that devices no longer need to be on the same wireless network. In fact our test showed that to find each other and mirror it is possible for neither the iOS device nor the Apple TV to be connected to a wireless network. | What did we need to prove?We needed to test iPads in close proximity to one another to recreate the worst case scenario of adjacent classrooms each using Apple TV and different iPads to mirror their displays. We needed to be able to prove that the Apple TV and iPads could do the following:
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Test results
1. Each device was able to easily find the Apple TV it was trying to be connected to. The discovery was fast and the mirroring came up quickly.
2. Scrolling between the two screens was flawless. It was an exact replica of the image on the iPad screen with no lag.
3. Streaming a 1080p video from YouTube was perfect. No delay and no lag.
4. Disconnecting from one Apple TV and connecting to another was easy. This could be done with each of the different devices.
I'm no network expert so I am restricted to laymans terms, but this test seems to show that iPads and Apple TV could be used together in schools for large scale deployment. Previously there has been an issue with bonjour print discovery which is the way that the iPads and Apple TVs find one another. The devices are constantly shouting out their presence, meaning that there can be a lot of confusion about the availability of devices to connect to or devices disappear. The suggestion of turning off bonjour restricts the use of wireless printing.
Using Bluetooth discovery means that devices will only see the Apple TVs nearest to them. This should mean only the ones in adjacent classrooms. In terms of network design the requirement looks to be that the apple TVs sit on a different network to the iPads, meaning that there is no way for wifi discovery thus forcing Bluetooth discovery to be the way forward.
This is an exciting development for Apple TV and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works on a large scale.