After speaking at length with Paul at Bristol, two things that came over crystal clear regarding F80 type device.

1. Meridian are fully aware of the importance of Airplay
2. One of their European (Scandinavia?) distributers have made them fully aware that the vast majority their customers still would find an optical drive of sorts to be very important.

What effect this will have on future products was not said.

Meridian owner since 1992
Prime & PSU, Focal Elear headphones, Roon (ROCK 8Gi5 NUC), Explorer 1 & 2, F80. 200/203, various Sonos (via Roon).