Field notes for app developers who want to ship an AirPlay / speaker output picker on macOS. Based on public APIs, Apple/DTS statements, community engineering (WebKit, shairport-sync, Rogue Amoeba, open-source players), and live probes on macOS 26.5.2 (facts verified on hardware are marked 🔬).
- macOS has no OS-level per-app audio routing. Output routing is a single system-wide selection (the "default output device"). Per-app routing only exists when an app pins a device on its own audio path.