I tried Apple SharePlay, and now Google’s version feels like a beta

SharePlay isn’t new. It’s been around on Apple devices for a few years now, allowing you to team up with friends or family to watch something together, syncing video streams over a video call. It’s a handy tool when your loved ones aren’t in the same location. As with everything Apple, you can’t use it outside of the walled garden, so Android users are left out.

To counter that, Google made its own version of SharePlay (I don’t blame you if you’ve never heard of it), but it leaves you wanting more — much more. After a moment of using it, I thought, “That’s it? That’s all it does?”

I tried both SharePlay and Google’s alternative side by side to see what exactly Apple does to make its version so much better — and what Google needs to do to enhance its community features, which are currently so lacking that it’s embarrassing.

SharePlay isn’t part of my regular routine since most of my video calls happen on WhatsApp, while SharePlay requires FaceTime. But when I finally tried it, I wondered why I hadn’t used it before. I’d switch to FaceTime completely for this feature alone when I want to watch something with my people. It’s that seamless.

I FaceTimed my sister, and in the middle of a conversation about a movie trailer, we decided to watch it together and give our expert opinions — how well the movie might do at the box office and whether the music was just meh.

During the call, I just opened YouTube, and the SharePlay option appeared. Once I selected it, my sister got an invite to join — and just like that, we were watching the same YouTube video, pausing and playing in the middle to dissect every scene in detail as if we were film critics.

I didn’t consider the experience mind-blowingly straightforward or seamless in the moment. Its simplicity and it-just-works nature didn’t stand out — until I tried Google’s alternative.

I got sidetracked during this little adventure, so I’ll take you along with me. Google replaced the more consumer-friendly Duo and consolidated it into Google Meet. Sure, it makes sense to have a single product for similar functionality, but this rebrand changed my perception entirely. Google Meet is now a work app. I don’t — and wouldn’t — use it to call my friends, just like I wouldn’t use Zoom or Microsoft Teams (bleh). But I had to open it for the sake of science.

Aaand cut. Back to the previous scene.

Google Meet is where you’ll find Google’s version of SharePlay. My first real encounter with it, though, left a bad taste in my mouth. While in a Meet call, I had to tap the three-dot menu, go to the Tools section, and select YouTube under Live sharing. From there, it shows you a screen to introduce live sharing every single time, along with a button to open YouTube. Once on YouTube, you open a video and enable Live sharing from the pop-up menu to finally start watching it with everyone on the call.

Pheww…that’s a lot of steps compared to the sheer simplicity of Apple’s approach. It’s honestly so off-putting that I was tempted to give up partway through. And then the problems began.

The pop-up never popped for me. I checked help pages, even Google’s own tutorial video on YouTube, but nothing helped — and yes, I do have a YouTube Premium subscription. I gave it multiple tries, but that pop-up just refused to show up. After about 15 minutes of trying, I gave up.

If I were actually sitting down to watch something, with food in my hands and friends waiting for me, I certainly wouldn’t want this error to show up then. I’d be left both embarrassed and irritated — and more importantly, my food would get cold. And no one makes my food go cold, not even Google.

Even outside of that hiccup, Google’s Live sharing feels severely undercooked — primitive, even — while SharePlay feels like it’s living in the future.

Yes, I really do mean it’s primitive. The difference is that stark. The experience with Google Meet is clunky, with too many clicks required just to begin. And my luck made things worse at the very last moment.

Even after getting it to work later, I still wished for Google to copy so many of SharePlay’s ideas that it’d be easier for Apple to just bring SharePlay to Android instead of Google trying to match it feature-for-feature.

The apps supported by Google Meet are a couple of obscure tools, along with YouTube and Spotify — that’s it. Not even YouTube Music is supported, let alone other third-party options. SharePlay, on the other hand, supports tons of apps, and you’d be amazed by the breadth of its compatibility list.

For starters, it works with the usual streaming platforms like Disney+, Hulu, Max, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, Spotify, SoundCloud, and others, alongside Apple’s own TV and Music apps. But SharePlay goes beyond video and music. It even supports game streaming, where your friends can either watch your gameplay or join in like some hyper-competitive tournament where only one ultimate winner can claim the trophy.

You can also share feeds from fitness apps because why not work out together, too? But wait for this one — you can even use productivity apps together! My favorite PDF manager app lets you present a file and annotate it collaboratively, and when you’re tired of working, you can even stargaze together with Night Sky. How cool is that?

Oh, and if you start watching something on your iPhone, you can throw it onto a nearby Apple TV box and continue on the big screen without missing a beat.

If I were Google’s Live sharing feature, I’d save face and not even call myself a SharePlay alternative until I’d trained harder to be as good, if not better.

Google has all the right pieces in place, but they need to be strung together into a cohesive, interconnected web of apps and services that actually work across devices. It has a lot to learn from SharePlay — one tempting feature Android users don’t even realize they’re missing out on so badly.

It’s only when you climb up high fences and take a peek, you realize that some patches of grass are indeed greener on the other side.