SharePlay for developers

With SharePlay and the Group Activities API, people can enjoy experiences in your apps together in real-time while communicating via FaceTime and Messages.

MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone showing three different SharePlay activities

What’s New

SharePlay lets people share rich, real-time experiences while connecting via FaceTime and Messages. With AirDrop in iOS 17, people can now bring their devices together to instantly kick off a shared activity with any app that supports SharePlay — with no additional adoption required. A new share menu in FaceTime and the SharePlay UI makes discovering SharePlay apps even easier in iOS and iPadOS. And apps that support SharePlay can now rapidly transfer large files to everyone in the session.

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Turn your app into a shared experience

SharePlay lets people share experiences while connecting in a FaceTime call or a Messages conversation. And with the Group Activities API, it’s easier than ever to bring movies, TV, music, games, workouts, and other shared activities from your app into a space where people are already connecting with each other. People can discover that your app supports SharePlay through the share menu in FaceTime, or they can use the share sheet in your app to initiate an activity the moment they find something they want to share with friends in real time. You can also add a SharePlay button directly in your UI to help people kick off a shared activity with friends even faster in FaceTime or Messages.

Quality connections made easy

Group Activities and AVFoundation APIs are now deeply integrated with the Core Media stack on device. When a user plays media, playback immediately starts for the whole group at the same time. Immersive features, like smart volume and shared playback controls, make them feel like they’re all in the same place. And since your app runs natively on each device with no retransmission to others on the call, the quality of your app experience is never compromised.

Reach new users

SharePlay is a powerful way to reach people organically as users introduce your app to their friends at relevant moments. If someone initiates a group activity with an app that someone else in the FaceTime call or Messages conversation doesn’t have installed, SharePlay guides them to the App Store to download it. The Group Activities API gives you an opportunity to bring up onboarding flows for new users or special trial offers designed specifically for SharePlay users. It’s a quick and easy way to get people to try out your app experience alongside friends who already use your app.

Works across Apple platforms

SharePlay is supported on iOS 15, iPadOS 15, macOS Monterey, and tvOS 15, or later, and lets people bring their Apple TV into the experience when they want to display content on a larger screen. Offer your app as a Universal Purchase with a single bundle ID to support SharePlay experiences among users running your app on different Apple platforms. You can optionally provide a URL for users to join from Safari on macOS if your website supports the Media Session API. And all FaceTime calls and Messages conversations are end-to-end encrypted.

Tools and resources

Download Xcode and use these resources to build apps that integrate into FaceTime.

Download Xcode