System Media Routing (Casting Beyond AirPlay)

import AVSystemRouting is a new iOS 27 framework (iOS only — no macOS/visionOS/tvOS/watchOS/Mac Catalyst) that lets a media app route playback to non-AirPlay system routes — third-party casting targets such as Google Cast / Chromecast and DLNA — surfaced in the same system route picker and Control Center as AirPlay. Instead of bundling a per-vendor cast SDK, your app adopts one Apple API and drives playback through a uniform interface.

Availability is narrow and in flux

Reportedly driven by the EU Digital Markets Act, this capability is likely region-gated (EU) and beta in the Xcode 27 betas. Treat third-party routes as may or may not be present: always #available-gate and keep your existing AirPlay / in-app cast path as the fallback.

When to Use

Use this skill when you're:

• Casting to non-AirPlay devices (Chromecast, DLNA, …) without bundling each vendor's cast SDK
• Making playback follow a route the user picked from the system picker / Control Center, and controlling or observing that remote playback

For AirPlay specifically, the existing AVRoutePickerView + AVPlayer path still applies — AVSystemRouting is the addition for third-party protocols.

Example Prompts

• "How do I cast to Chromecast on iOS 27 without the Google Cast SDK?"
• "Support non-AirPlay casting / DLNA as a system route."
• "Respond when the user picks a third-party media route and control playback."
• "What's the difference between AVSystemRouteSession .player and .application modes?"
• "Why does 'no such module AVSystemRouting' happen when I build for the simulator?"
• "Why is supportedExtensionAvailable always false?"
• "How do I stop users seeking through an ad on a cast route?"

What This Skill Provides

• Explicit adoption model – observe AVSystemRouteController events, and on an activate event start an AVSystemRouteSession on the route (playback is not auto-routed)
• LaunchMode guidance – .player (hand a URL to the system media player on the device) vs .application (companion app + bidirectional dataChannel)
• playbackControl vs dataChannel – AVKit's AVPlaybackUserInterfaceControllable for standard playback control/observation, or raw Data exchange for custom protocols. (Do not use AVInterfaceControllable: Apple shipped and deprecated it in the same release, and it is a different, incompatible type.)
• What playbackControl actually gives you – which members you set (isPlaying, volume, state) and call (seek(to:tolerance:)) versus read (isReady, isBuffering, segments, seekableTimeRanges), and that it is @MainActor-isolated and Observable
• Info.plist prerequisites – MDESupportsUniversalURLPlayback / MDESupportedProtocols. Without them supportedExtensionAvailable is always false, even with a provider installed — the most common reason "nothing appears"
• The simulator wall – AVSystemRouting is absent from the iPhoneSimulator SDK, so you get no such module and #available cannot help. Covers the canImport guard and the device-only CI lane
• Ad-gating the scrubber – nothing enforces it for you: requiresLinearPlayback is a read-only indicator, and seekableTimeRanges only typically excludes ad segments (with nil and [] meaning opposite things). Covers the three-source gate — supportedSeekCapabilities, seekableTimeRanges, and subtracting the requiresLinearPlayback segments
• Consumer vs provider – your app is the consumer (no extension); a casting-protocol vendor ships the route-provider extension. AVSystemRouteController.supportedExtensionAvailable reports whether one is installed
• Availability gating – #available(iOS 27, *) plus a supportedExtensionAvailable check, with an AirPlay fallback

Related

• Now Playing – Lock Screen / Control Center metadata and remote commands for the content you route
• avfoundation-ref – the AVPlayer / AirPlay path AVSystemRouting complements