Posted By Paul Kafasis on May 24th, 2016

It’s been just over three months since we unveiled Airfoil for Mac version 5, which includes the new ability to send audio to Bluetooth speakers, many advancements in the companion Airfoil Satellite applications, and much more. Of course, we’re not stopping there when it comes to updating our whole-house audio streamer. Airfoil 5.1 has just been released, and it includes its own wealth of improvements. It’s a free update for all current owners of Airfoil 5, and owners of Airfoil 4 and lower are still eligible for a discounted upgrade.

What’s New in Airfoil 5.1

The most noticeable change in the new version is the updated Effects window, seen here:

We’ve improved the layout and labels for Effects, and made the window properly remember its state between launches. Couple this with the ability to save custom Equalizer presets that we added in version 5.0, and you’ve got a greatly enhanced Effects window for fine-tuning your audio!

We’ve also improved Airfoil Satellite, the remote control and audio receiving companion to Airfoil. With the latest version, Airfoil Satellite will receive and display Retina-quality album art whenever possible. As well, we’ve improved the way Airfoil Satellite works when controlling iTunes remotely.

This update also includes some small improvements to our audio capture engine, and squashes a handful of rare but annoying bugs, including an issue where communicating with password-protected speakers could incorrectly fail. Finally, several spots where visuals weren’t quite right have now been polished to a fine sheen. We’re always working to sand down rough edges in our software, and this update is no exception.

Chromecast Support

In March, Quentin wrote about our plans to include support for sending audio to the Chromecast. That’s not part of Airfoil 5.1, but we’re still hard at work on that, so fear not. We’re making good progress, and encourage you to watch for more news on that in the coming months.

Update Now

For now, just make sure you grab the latest Airfoil for Mac by selecting “Check for Update” from the Airfoil menu, or downloading it from our site. If you’ve never used Airfoil, you can check it out with a free trial, then purchase online.