It makes a lot of sense that the company would similarly invest in developments for its video-calling product as well, which is just a couple of taps away.īut if Apple wants SharePlay to be a success among the demographic of consumers most likely to use it, it’ll need to expand the number of apps that support it.įewer than a dozen services were included on Apple’s SharePlay slide at WWDCĪpple said that at launch, Disney Plus, ESPN Plus, HBO Max, Hulu, MasterClass, Paramount Plus, Pluto TV, TikTok, and Twitch will be supported on SharePlay, which is a somewhat limited grab bag of streaming options. The introduction of SharePlay also jibes with Apple’s reported plans to make iMessage compete more directly with Facebook-owned WhatsApp by becoming more of a social network. Video chatting is hugely popular, too, with a 2015 survey from Pew Research finding that 59 percent of US teens video chatted with their friends. Video-based social media apps like Instagram and TikTok are immensely popular among teens, and an overwhelming majority of teens have access to these apps on their own personal smartphones. SharePlay particularly makes sense for the next generation of iPhone users, as teens are more inclined to watch videos on their phones. SharePlay makes sense for teen streamers, but the feature needs wider app support if it’s going to work
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Instead, the update puts FaceTime square against services like Facebook Messenger that dominate messaging and have already been trying to build out co-watching experiences, but without as robust of a service list as Apple has the ability to line up.
After all, you’re still watching Hulu, just in a different space. The goal isn’t to compete with those native platforms, though. For services where it’s not supported, like Netflix, there are popular extensions that enable simultaneous streaming and chatting as well. It’s a neat tool for the pandemic era, and it takes inspiration from the watch party modes that many major streaming platforms - including Disney Plus, Hulu, and Prime Video, among others - added themselves in the last year. SharePlay, announced earlier this week and likely arriving in the fall, will allow FaceTime users to share and stream media in real time from an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. It offers Apple a chance to hook a new generation of users on FaceTime - but the service is still missing some key integrations to make that happen, particularly for the teens most likely to use it.
The move positions FaceTime to compete more directly with platforms like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Houseparty, which all offer ways to video chat while watching things as a group. Apple is bringing one of streaming’s trendiest features to iPhone users with the debut of SharePlay in iOS 15 later this year, allowing FaceTime users to stream music, online videos, and movies together with friends.
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