All-New HTC 10 Android Smartphone Shockingly Features Apple’s AirPlay out of the Box

From time to time, the ever-growing community of mobile software developers are able to bring certain iOS features to Android devices. However, seldom if ever is the case that you’ll come across a flagship from an Android manufacturer that boasts support for an exclusive iOS feature — let alone, without having to hack into the handset and make risky changes of your own volition.

Yesterday, however, all of that platform exclusivity hullabaloo changed quite drastically for the better, thanks to one of the most unlikely players in the smartphone realm. At the Taiwanese manufacturer’s special media event, HTC took the wraps off its 2016 flagship device, the HTC 10, and, for those toying with the idea of switching from iOS to Android, the all-new 10 makes the move seem perhaps just a little bit more enticing.

It appears that HTC’s 10 will, fresh out of the box, boast unrestricted functionality for one of Apple’s recent blockbuster features — wireless audio streaming via their home-brewed AirPlay technology.

When it launches toward the middle of May, 2016, owners of HTC’s 10 flagship will be able to stream audio wirelessly, via AirPlay, to any compatible AirPlay device — including Apple’s own TV set-top box, although it still remains to be seen if video streaming will be supported by AirPlay on the 10 as well.

As originally reported by Engadget, there are several 3rd party apps — many of which have been available in the Google Play Store for some time now — that offer up some form of AirPlay functionality for compatible Android devices. However, HTC, for its part, has officially gone down in the record books as the first Android manufacturer to have licensed the technology from Apple, exclusively, and enabled it on its latest, top-shelf device as a feature by default.

In order to stream high-quality audio over the airwaves, Android devices have typically relied on protocols such as Google’s Chrome Cast. And while Chrome Cast is a more universally available audio streaming protocol, at least insofar as compatible hardware and software is pertinent, it is inherently limited — in the respect that it doesn’t work with Apple TVs or any other AirPlay compatible speakers or devices. So it’s definitely interesting to see an Android handset feature something like AirPlay — which is, historically speaking, an exclusively Apple-created, Apple centric platform.

And what better way to reign in the feature on Android than by debuting it on one of 2016’s hottest new flagships, right? The HTC 10 features a slew of top-shelf hardware components packed inside a solid, all-metal shell — including a 5.2-inch QHD display at 1,440 x 2,560 resolution, Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 820 (six-core) ‘Kyro’ CPU, 32/64 GB of storage and 4 GB RAM, a USB-C port, as well as a whopping 3,000 mAh battery capable of delivering up to 2 days worth of power.

Additional features include a 12 MP camera with dual LED flash around back, a 5 MP selfies-snapper, 24-bit audio output, and a microSD card slot capable of adding up to 200 GB of additional storage.

Sound interesting? Well you can pre-order your own HTC 10, as of today, however the device will officially be launching as early as next month with a price tag of $699.

Learn More: 5 Android Features and Enhancements iOS Should Steal

What do you think about the all-new HTC 10? Is it worth jumping ship from iPhone just to get AirPlay functionality and a few other bells and whistles? Let us know what you think in the comments below!