AirPlay hotel support is finally available–for only a handful of rooms

Watching what you want to watch on a hotel TV can be frustrating, especially now that so much of TV is dominated by streaming services. Customers rejoiced when Apple announced the iOS 17 feature at WWDC last summer that hotels would soon support AirPlay in a secure fashion on their hotel TVs, but the feature has taken quite a while to actually roll out.

Starting today, anyone with iOS 17.3 or later can use AirPlay at up to 60 select IHG hotels in North America. You can see the full list here, and more will be added over time.

The way it works is simple: The TV’s welcome screen will display a QR code which you scan with your iPhone or iPad, and your device will make a private connection with the TV. You can even pair multiple devices.

Then, just use AirPlay as you normally would, playing music or video in any AirPlay-supported app directly to your hotel TV.

60 hotels in the United States, Canada, and Mexico is a pretty small number, but IHG is a huge hotel group with lots of brands (Holiday Inn, Kimpton, InterContinental, avid, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, and more). Over the next couple years the list will grow, and perhaps Apple will start to include other partners, so there’s a good chance that your hotel entertainment experience in the next couple of years will be driven entirely by your iPhone.