Well it’s been a long time coming, but SharePlay is now available in iOS 15.1 and you can use it in FaceTime.

Here’s a really quick guide to how you can get started with SharePlay.

Okay, you join me in the middle of a FaceTime call between myself and,, well myself!

A perfectly normal thing to do – I’m sure you’ll agree!

As soon as I’m in that FaceTime call we can start using SharePlay as long as everyone in the call is running iOS 15.

If people aren’t running iOS 15 they simply won’t see the content that you’re sharing.

Okay so to get started with SharePlay, all we have to do is swipe up to actually leave the FaceTime conversation.

This almost seems a little counter-intuitive, but don’t worry.

Now I’m going to go into an App that has SharePlay enabled.

Now third-party apps can utilise this as well, but to begin with Apple Music, Apple TV – those sort of apps, are going to be your best bet to try out SharePlay.

Let’s jump into Apple Music and here I’ve got an album I’m enjoying by Honne.

I want to share that song with myself on FaceTime and SharePlay will make that really easy for me.

In fact you can see at the top of my screen I’ve got a notification straight away that says ‘content is ready to share over SharePlay’.

So I’m going to choose the song that I like from the new album by Honne and as soon as I start playing it on my iPhone, my iPad will then get a message asking if I want to join SharePlay on there as well.

Obviously I’m going to press Join, but unfortunately my Apple Music account only works on one device at a time (and I’m not going to upgrade just for this video!).

However you can see that song is now playing on my iPad – and if this was a real FaceTime call with different people they would all be able to control that music as well.

That means they can Play and Pause, they can fast forward and they can change the song.

And now you’ve started a SharePlay session, everyone will be enjoying that same music choice together.

Now when you’re in a SharePlay session you can’t always see the FaceTime call that you’re part of – but in the top toolbar there’ll be a little green icon both on the iPad and the iPhone.

If you tap on here you can see who’s in the conversation, mute your microphone and enable or disable your camera.

On my iPhone I can disable the SharePlay session by pressing the SharePlay icon on the right hand side and then pressing End under the SharePlay that I’m currently using.

However at this point you might be thinking, “well – where’s my FaceTime call gone?”, “where have my friends gone?” or “where has, myself, gone?!” in this case.

Well to get back into your FaceTime call you actually need to swipe up to go into Multitasking Mode on your device.

From here you’ll then see your active call as a window at the very front of your Multitasking view.

When you tap onto here you’ll go straight back into your call and your camera will reactivate automatically.

That’s a really quick look at music on SharePlay, but let’s have a quick look at how video works as well because it’s super clever.

But before we do that, you wouldn’t believe how difficult it’s actually been to put this video together!

FaceTime is not something that’s easy to do a screen recording of, particularly when you’re doing a SharePlay session.

It’s taken me a whole day to make this three or four minute video!

So if you did find it useful, or if you’ve learned something, please do give it a Like down below and maybe even Subscribe to my Channel – that will really help me make more videos and help me share my content with more and more people.

Okay, enough of that!

Let’s have a look at SharePlay video.

On my iPad this time I’m going to come out of FaceTime by swiping up to go back to the Home Screen.

Then I’m going to open up an App that has SharePlay compatibility – so I’m going to use the Apple TV app in this instance.

Then I’m going to go onto the show that I want to watch with myself or with my friends over FaceTime – in this case Invasion.

As soon as that comes up the other device will have a notification asking if you want to join that SharePlay session – again just like before.

And then the video will start playing simultaneously across both devices.

But I want to watch it full screen and really enjoy this new series, and to do that I’m just going to tap onto that video.

Now it’s full screen, both people (or more than two people if you’re doing a group FaceTime call) can enjoy that content at the same time.

And they can chat to each other while it’s going on – your device will even lower the audio of the video you’re playing so you can hear each other better if you’re talking.

Of course all parties can control the video as well.

They can pause it if they’re gonna get some more popcorn, or they can fast-forward or rewind if they want to re-watch something.

And when that happens everyone’s devices will stay in sync through SharePlay.

Back to my iPhone now and I’m going to end my SharePlay session.

To do this I’m just going to press the X on the video in the top corner and then I have the option of ending that just for me or for everyone on the FaceTime call.

I’ll end it for everyone and then, just like before, by swiping up to go into multitasking mode I can reopen the last use FaceTime call.

And there I am again chatting to myself!

That’s been a really quick guide at how SharePlay works on your iPhone and iPad running iOS 15.1.

I really hope you found this useful.

If you have please do Subscribe down below and give the video a Like and there are loads more videos on iOS 15 waiting for you on my YouTube channel.

I’ll see you all next time.