Developers who implement the Media Session API give viewers the option to control and monitor media playback outside their web page. The first screenshot below demonstrates how a viewer can play/resume/seek a video through their iOS home screen, and the second screenshot below demonstrates the same level of control on a macOS.
The Media Session API is available on most modern desktop and mobile browsers as documented at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MediaSessionAPI. The W3C working draft of the Media Session standard is available at https://www.w3.org/TR/mediasession/.
We recommend developers to implement the Media Session API on top of the THEOplayer API in order to ensure the deepest level of control. A sample implementation and demo is available at https://replit.com/@THEOplayer/THEOplayerMediaSessionAPI.
Implementing the Media Session API is part of implementing Apple's SharePlay feature on Safari. Contact us if you're interested in building SharePlay experiences.