I have made my new years' resolutions and one is to never ever again buy a Sony SmartTV !

The disrespect of Sony towards its clients is outrageous and, at CES2019, has hit a new top record - AirPlay2 support will only become avaliable in the 2019 TVs !

In 2018 we witnessed the ordeal of Dobly Atmos only being avaliable to the 2018 TVs when there should be no limitation to make it avaliable to 2017 TVs (https://community.sony.pt/t5/android-tv/kd-55a1-dolby-atmos-with-netflix/td-p/2446871). It should be just an issue with licensing and Sony paying royalties to Dolby.

Since ever there is the issue that many third-party Bluetooth ear-speakers not operating with Sony SmartTVs even if they have A2DP. For instance, Apple Airpods cannot be synced with the XE-80 models even so that are A2DP enabled. You need to do a crazy workaround do make it work, see https://community.sony.pt/t5/android-tv/a2dp-bluetooth-not-on-the-update/m-p/2338209.

And now, at CES2019, Sony announced that only the 2019 models will support AirPlay2. Samsung is rolling the feature out as a software update to its 2018 models. Vizio is bringing HomeKit and AirPlay 2 support to TVs from 2016, see https://9to5mac.com/2019/01/12/vizio-airplay-2-homekit-tvs/.

Sony might think that this will make their clients buy new SmartTV models but, in fact, it only makes clients displeased and unhappy, and the next time we will buy a new SmartTV will not for sure be a Sony. Furthemore, we will not recommend our friends and colleagues to buy Sony SmartTVs.