When you do your streaming over AirPlay, you’re usually doing it over your home Wi-Fi network. This is an open standard and you can end up with lo-fi sound cards or poor Wi-Fi connectivity. With AirPlay Direct, Apple would then have a new wireless standard that it would then license to hardware partners. Then, you can go ahead and stream content from your iPhone or MacBook, but you’d be doing it over a dedicated wireless network and not your home Wi-Fi.

Of course, what this means is that you’d end up buying all new equipment as far as transmitters and receivers go, but it does mean that Apple is able to better control the hi-fi wireless streaming experience, whether that involves music, movies, or whatever else. The name “AirPlay Direct” is already a registered trademark to some company in Georgia, but I’m sure with that Apple can spend some of that new $1 billion to buy them out of that.

[Source]

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Pfft, pretty much all iPod speaker docks are the same right? The JBL On Air is a little bit of a different beast, though, since it makes use of the AirPlay wireless streaming. That and, well, the “halo” design is pretty sweet too.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this design or this technology, but JBL has officially come forward to officially announce this speaker. You can use your AirPlay-enabled Mac or iOS device (4.2+) to stream your tunes from some distance away. The little screen on the On Play will show the current track information.

The rest of the specs aren’t as exciting — dual alarm clock, FM radio, USB port for firmware updates — but I guess they’re still worth mentioning. Pricing, which just so happens to be an important tidbit, has not yet been announced but JBL expects to start selling this rounded out speaker in the spring.

Beyonce’s Halo track not included.

[JBL]

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