How to get your iPhone screen on a TV without buying an Apple TV
Can I put my iPhone screen on my TV without buying an Apple TV?
Yes, and there are four approaches worth knowing. Which one suits you depends on whether you want to stay wireless, whether you already own a Fire TV or Google TV, and whether you need it to keep working without maintenance.
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An Apple TV is the frictionless answer, and it costs more than every other option on this page combined. If you already own a television with Fire TV, Google TV or Android TV built in, you have cheaper routes.
Install a receiver app on the television
You install one app on the television and one on the iPhone. They find each other on your Wi-Fi and the phone sends its screen directly.
Costs nothing to try. Vistacast is free for ten minutes a day, and Pro removes that from $2.99 a month or $24.99 once.
Works because both halves are ordinary apps. Nothing depends on a protocol that might change, so an iOS update does not end it.
Fails when your network isolates devices from each other, which is common on guest, hotel and campus Wi-Fi. It also needs the app open on the television; it is not a background service.
Use an app that imitates Apple’s protocol
Some television apps present themselves to the iPhone as an Apple device, so the iPhone needs no app at all. You pick the television from the iPhone’s own screen-mirroring menu.
Costs vary; most are subscriptions in the same range.
Works because it needs nothing installed on the phone, which is genuinely more convenient.
Fails when Apple changes something. The protocol is closed and undocumented, so these apps break periodically and stay broken until the developer catches up. If you search for any of them you will find review histories that alternate between “works perfectly” and “stopped working after the update”.
Use a cable
A Lightning or USB-C to HDMI adapter plugs the phone into the television directly.
Costs the price of the adapter, once. Apple’s is expensive; third-party ones vary in quality.
Works because there is no network and no software involved. It is the most reliable option on this page by a wide margin.
Fails when you want to sit more than a cable’s length from the television, or use the phone while it is mirroring.
Buy a Chromecast with Google TV, or any Google TV device
If your television is old and has nothing built in, a cheap Google TV device gives you a platform that a receiver app can run on.
Costs the price of the device, plus whatever the app costs.
Works because it turns any HDMI television into one of the supported platforms.
Fails when you buy the wrong thing. A classic Chromecast dongle cannot install apps at all, so there is nowhere to put a receiver. You need one with Google TV.
What none of them can do
Every option on this page, cables included, is blocked from mirroring Netflix, Disney+ and other copy-protected video. That restriction lives in iOS itself, not in any app or adapter, so no amount of money solves it. If mirroring Netflix is the reason you are reading this, the honest answer is that the app on your television is the way to watch it, not your phone.
So which one?
If you already have a Fire TV, Google TV or Android TV, try a receiver app first. It costs nothing to find out, and the failure mode is a network setting rather than wasted money. If reliability matters more than convenience, buy the cable. If you have neither the device nor patience, an Apple TV is genuinely the least trouble, and it is fair to say so.