General Airplay 2 – Controls for Volume/Up Next

[crsmith05]

I haven’t been able to find a straight answer and was hoping someone has advice:

Scenario:
I initiate Apple Music playback from an iOS device – from that device I’m able to individually toggle which speakers are in-use, adjust the volume level for each, and see the Up Next queue. Simply put, it works as expected.

Problem/Question:
My home has multiple iOS devices (wife’s phone, iPad, etc). When I access the “Now Playing” widget from Control Center or launch the Music app - on a SECOND (DIFFERENT) iOS device - the speaker toggle, volume control, and Up Next queue isn’t available.

Assumptions:
Playback can be initiated from any iOS device – THEN, I should be able to use any other iOS device in my home to toggle speakers, adjust the volume level, and manipulate the Up Next queue. I know the devices are talking because the album art and track position are in sync.

Seems like my scenario would be an extremely common use-case for Airplay 2. Say I start playback in a few indoor rooms from the iPad in my kitchen, later I’m outside and decide to add my garage speakers to the now playing group and adjust the volume - using a second device - my iPhone. This doesn’t seem possible without starting a completely new audio stream from my iPhone. All devices are running 11.4.1. Slightly related, I upgraded MacOS to 10.13.6 and the Airplay 2 support in iTunes seems equally crippled.

 

[cynics]

Unless I'm misunderstanding you that is the way it works with a few caveats.

1. I don't have another iOS device under a different AppleID to test.

2. The speakers are AirPlay 2 compatible.

3. My experience may be based through and because of Apple Music that the speakers are leveraging.

For example if I play "STS9 - Ramone & Emiglio" on my iPhone I can select multiple receivers which will play them. And it will say iPhone > HomePod + Living Room AppleTV 4K (in this example anyway).



If I goto another iOS device such as my iPad I can see that "STS9 - Ramone & Emiglio" is playing on "HomePod + Living Room AppleTV 4K".



If I select it I can skip to the next track, pause play, etc. Pretty much all the functionality my iPhone had.



Click on the area with the artist, song and album will bring up the Music app.

Volume control was set initially. For this reason its typically best to play from one of the speakers not the iPhone. So I would pull up the AirPlay controls and select a speaker and start the music from there.