SharePlay is here. A software update released earlier this week brings it to the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV; FaceTime's new sharing feature is also coming to the Mac, but as part of a subsequent update to macOS 12 Monterey, which will not be released until later this year.

Since Apple announced SharePlay over the summer, the feature has received a lot of attention. The reason for this is simple: SharePlay greatly extends the capabilities of FaceTime, which allows users to watch movies and TV shows with others via video chat, listen to music together, and share screens (to Disney Plus SharePlay has been added, so you can use that app as well).

Other video chat services already offer features similar to what Apple does with SharePlay. However, Apple is betting that this feature will be integrated into all devices and will be accepted by people who use FaceTime as their video messaging app, and perhaps more people will give FaceTime a try.

I have spent some time on SharePlay, first as part of my review of iOS 15 and then as research for a guide on how to use SharePlay. This is a welcome addition to FaceTime and may be an enhancement that will make me use FaceTime more often to reconnect with family and friends, even though I can choose to use or not use Apple's video chat app.

Most discussions about SharePlay have focused on the ability to watch movies and shows together. However, SharePlay also offers other features, some of which may surprise you.

Let's take a closer look at some of the less publicized elements of SharePlay.

The ability to share your screen with others in a FaceTime call seems to fly under the radar, but now that SharePlay is being rolled out, many people will probably make good use of it. For starters, sharing screens is a great way to provide remote technical support. It's also a good way to share photos in real time, with an intimacy that texting doesn't provide.

To this end, SharePlay allows users to pinch and zoom the shared screen. Images are also displayed in the native resolution of the sharing device, so everything can be seen clean and clear.

A particularly valuable screen sharing feature is one that most people never see. Notifications on your screen during screen sharing are not visible to others; SharePlay suppresses pop-up dialogs and notifications to protect your privacy.

One of the highlights of SharePlay is that video and music can be synchronized so that everyone on the FaceTime call can experience the same thing at the same time. Controls can also be shared, so everyone can pause and resume playback or skip to the part everyone wants to watch.

The best part of this experience, in my test call anyway, is that these controls are responsive. When I tapped pause, everyone on the FaceTime call stopped playing almost immediately; SharePlay's low latency probably accounts for this seamless experience.

The Apple TV set-top box may not be the first Apple device that comes to mind when one thinks of FaceTime calls, but it will be part of the FaceTime experience when using SharePlay.

Let's say you start a FaceTime call on your iPhone and you want to watch a video together; if you have an Apple TV nearby, you can switch playback to that device and continue the FaceTime call on your iPhone while watching a movie or show on the big screen. (This feature requires the latest version of tvOS.)

Apple added picture-in-picture to the iPhone last year, and now that ShareTime is available, this feature will work with FaceTime as well. When you tap the Picture-in-Picture button, the SharePlay session becomes a floating window, allowing you to access other applications on your iPhone or iPad.

However, SharePlay's Picture-in-Picture has something special - in addition to the video, the participants in the FaceTime call are displayed in a square. (Tap that square to return to FaceTime.

Apple has come up with another nifty way to interact with people during a SharePlay session: the FaceTime menu has a Message button that you can tap to send a text message to the person you are on a FaceTime call with. menu has a message button that, when tapped, sends a text message to the person on the FaceTime call. (Of course, if someone wants to talk, SharePlay will drop the playback audio so you can hear what they are saying.)

It's really no surprise that Apple is putting their streaming music service to the best use for SharePlay. This is the advantage of running both a streaming service and a sharing tool.

Synchronized playback, of course, but lyrics are also synchronized and displayed on the screen; there is a shared queue of songs you are about to listen to that everyone on the FaceTime call can access. And anyone can add songs to the queue so that everyone can control playback.

In the beta versions of iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, trying SharePlay was limited to using an Apple TV Plus. (In addition to Apple Music, SharePlay also works with Apple Fitness Plus and content purchased or rented from Apple's online store, provided that everyone on the FaceTime call has purchased or rented that particular title. ). The inclusion of this feature in FaceTime will further expand the use of SharePlay as third-party app makers provide updates that incorporate SharePlay support.

Paramount Plus and Showtime have already added SharePlay support to their streaming apps; the NBA announced support today (October 27) to allow SharePlay of games through its NBA app; Disney Plus update to Plus is expected later this year.

While the focus may be on streaming apps at the moment, Apple offers SharePlay developer tools to build support into all kinds of apps, and we're already seeing support creep into unexpected places. For example, Redfin has added SharePlay support and synced browsing of home listings in its apps; Night Sky now supports stargazing with SharePlay; and Heads Up. party games have also been updated with SharePlay functionality.

TikTok just announced an update that incorporates SharePlay, allowing users to sync video viewing with others on FaceTime calls. It also allows users to favorite and follow TikTok contributors from within the app.

As developers find ways to integrate sharing tools into their software, expect additional announcements about SharePlay support from a wide range of apps.