FirePlay

Open-source AirPlay 2 Apple Device receiver for Fire TV & Android

Install • What It Does • How It Works • Build • Credits

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Why?

AirReceiver, AirScreen, and AirPin all charge you to do AirPlay on Fire TV. Every "open-source AirPlay for Android" project on GitHub was either dead, audio-only, or required a Raspberry Pi. This project fixes that.

┌─────────────┐    mDNS + RTSP    ┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│   iPhone    │◄─────────────────►│          FirePlay (APK)          │
│             │                   │                                  │
│  Music      │    ALAC audio     │   ALACDecoder ──► AAudio out     │
│  Photos     │    H.264 video    │   MediaCodec  ──► SurfaceView   │
│  Video      │    AAC-ELD audio  │   MediaCodec  ──► AAudio out     │
│             │                   │                                  │
│  AirPlay 2  │    FairPlay pair  │   UxPlay protocol lib (GPL-3)    │
└─────────────┘                   └──────────────────────────────────┘

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Install

Option 1 — Downloader app (no computer needed)

1. On your Fire TV, install the free Downloader app from the Amazon Appstore.
2. Go to Settings → My Fire TV → Developer Options → turn on Install unknown apps for Downloader.
   (No Developer Options? Settings → My Fire TV → About → click "Fire TV" 7 times.)
3. Open Downloader and type:

   is.gd/fireplay_tv
   

4. Press Go → Install → Open. You'll see the FirePlay splash screen — it's now listening.
5. On your iPhone: Music or Photos → tap the AirPlay icon → pick FirePlay.

Option 2 — ADB sideload

adb connect <fire-tv-ip>:5555
adb install fireplay-v0.1.0-debug.apk

APKs attached to every GitHub release.

Option 3 — F-Droid (coming soon)

F-Droid metadata is ready under fastlane/metadata/. Submission planned at v0.2. Amazon Appstore is intentionally not a target — Apple has a history of DMCA-noticing AirPlay reimplementations.

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What It Does

iPhone source	What you get on the TV
Music app	Lossless ALAC audio through TV speakers
Photos (still)	Full-resolution photo displayed
Photos (video)	H.264 video + AAC-ELD sound
YouTube etc. (legacy AirPlay)	HLS video

What it does NOT do (yet)

Feature	Status
iPhone screen mirroring (Control Center)	Planned for v0.2
Netflix / Disney+ / HBO casting	Blocked by Apple FairPlay DRM — no open-source project can do this

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Status

Milestone	Status
mDNS advertisement (JmDNS)	✅
iOS 17/18 pairing (FairPlay 2-round)	✅
Music — ALAC → AAudio	✅
Photos/Video — H.264 → MediaCodec → Surface	✅
Video sound — AAC-ELD → MediaCodec → AAudio	✅
Per-device identity (no collisions on multi-receiver LANs)	✅
Idle splash screen with branding	✅
iPhone screen mirroring	🚧
F-Droid release	🚧

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How It Works

Protocol layer (lib-uxplay/) — vendored from FDH2/UxPlay, GPL-3. Handles SRP-6a pairing, FairPlay emulation, RAOP RTP demux, NTP sync.

Audio (audio_renderer_aaudio.cpp):

• Music: ALAC packets → Apple's open-source ALACDecoder → PCM → AAudio output
• Video sound: AAC-ELD packets → Android AMediaCodec → PCM → same AAudio stream

Video (video_renderer_mediacodec.cpp):

• H.264 NAL units from iPhone → AMediaCodec hardware decoder → ANativeWindow (SurfaceView)
• Zero CPU-copy rendering path

Discovery:

• Android's built-in NsdManager is unreliable advertising to Apple clients
• We use JmDNS with hand-built Bonjour TXT records instead

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Build from Source

Requirements: Android NDK r27+, SDK with platforms;android-28, JDK 17.

git clone https://github.com/jimnoneill/FirePlay.git
cd FirePlay
# Windows: edit local.properties with your SDK/NDK paths, then:
gradle assembleDebug
adb install app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk

The build script build.ps1 sets up env vars for Windows ARM64 machines.

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Tested on

Device	OS	Result
Fire TV Cube 3rd Gen (AFTGAZL)	Fire OS 7.7.1	✅ Music + Photos + Video
iPhone 13	iOS 18 (AirPlay/870.14.1)	✅ Full pairing + streaming

The APK ships both armeabi-v7a and arm64-v8a — any Fire TV / Android TV running Android 9+ should work.

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Credits

• FDH2/UxPlay — AirPlay 2 protocol stack (GPL-3)
• macosforge/alac — Apple ALAC decoder (APSL)
• KDAB/android_openssl — prebuilt OpenSSL for Android
• libimobiledevice/libplist — Apple plist parser (LGPL-2.1)
• jmdns/jmdns — Apple-compatible mDNS in Java

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Support

If FirePlay saved you the $5 AirReceiver fee — or if you just think open-source AirPlay on Android should exist — you can help keep it going.

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License

GPL-3.0 (inherited from UxPlay). See LICENSE.

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_{Built with relentless determination and Claude Code.}