iOS 11 Beta 3 Hints at Native Livestreaming Capabilities

Apple officially seeded the third developer beta of iOS 11 yesterday — and it managed to pack in nearly 50 bug fixes and improvements. But beyond those important changes, Apple quietly added a small feature that could hint at future livestreaming capabilities.

Users who have downloaded the latest beta will notice an addition to the new screen capture feature. Right underneath Screen Recording is an otherwise innocuous button that’s labeled “Start Broadcast.” Presumably, it’s meant to offer an easy way to livestream your iOS device’s screen via various media. But that’s just conjecture at this point, since the button currently doesn’t do anything — it simply activates the screen recording functionality as usual, saving a video to the device’s Camera Roll.

Of course, the mere inclusion of the button hints at several possibilities. For one, it could suggest that Apple is working on its own native video livestreaming app or feature. Though, if that were the case, it probably would have been mentioned at WWDC. Sure, Apple could be planning on adding such a feature in a later version of iOS 11, similar to its rollout of Portrait Mode for the iPhone 7 Plus in iOS 10.1. But that begs the question of why it would have been included so early in iOS 11’s lifespan. Start Broadcast is likely not an AirPlay-related feature, either, since AirPlay already has a mirroring function in the updated Control Center.

A more likely scenario is that it offers a seamless way to share a livestream of a device’s screen to various social media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. When it’s actually implemented, tapping on the Start Broadcast button could open up a share sheet with various options, apps and platforms — which could also include options to broadcast via proprietary apps like FaceTime or Messages. Though still speculation, third-party livestreaming integration definitely makes the most sense.