LG’s 2019 TVs will get an AirPlay 2 and HomeKit update mid-year

The high-end televisions that the South Korean manufacturer LG is bringing to the market this year will receive an update somewhere in the middle of the year that adds the previously announced support for AirPlay 2 and Homekit.

LG only reports that the update that adds support for AirPlay 2 and Homekit will follow sometime in the middle of this year, without giving specific dates. The update only follows for new TVs that LG releases this year: the OLED models, the NanoCell LCD TVs and LCD TVs from the UM7X series. There is a petition to make AirPlay 2 and Homekit also available for LG’s OLED TVs from the past three years, but LG has not yet responded to this call.

LG announced in January during the CES fair in Las Vegas that support for AirPlay 2 and Homekit would follow. For example, AirPlay 2 allows users to stream videos, photos and music from their Apple devices or iTunes to their TV. HomeKit allows users to control their LG TV with the Home app or via voice assistant Siri.

Owners of new TV models from LG will also receive a firmware update this year that adds Amazon Alexa; support for Google Assistant is already present by default. It is unknown when exactly this update will take place.

The manufacturer also announces that the new OLED and NanoCell TVs will be released this month. This will first happen in South Korea and the United States, followed by Europe, among others. According to LG, OLED TVs make up twenty percent of the brand’s high-end TV offerings and the demand for these TVs will continue to grow significantly in the coming years. This year, the company expects demand of 3.6 million units, rising to 7 million in 2020 and 10 million in 2021.