News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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At the sweet price of free, Apple have once again increased the value of all my Apple equipment by providing a seamless, portable and intuitive way for me to control my music. I love it.
Remote |
|
| Type | iPhone application |
| Rating |
 
|
| Pros | Free, Works with existing hardware, intuitive controls |
| Cons | Drains battery when connection maintained |
| SRP | Free |
| Manufacturer | Apple |
| Distributor | Apple, www.apple.com.au |
If you've dreamed of decking out your house with one of those fancy Sonos sound systems think again. With a few Apple products (iTunes, Airport Express and Apple TV), and some simple set up you'll be able to create a music, and video system, that can be listened to and watched anywhere in your home.
The secret ingredient is a free app for your iPhone or iPod Touch from Apple, simply called Remote.
Remote (a free download from the App Store) gives you the ability to control any iTunes library, or any Apple TV on your wireless network. Add to the mix an Airport Express base station and you can also switch on or off AirTunes, the functionality that lets iTunes stream music over WiFi to the Airport Express, which can be connected to your amp or a set of speakers.
Using Remote, in typical Apple fashion, is dead easy. The hardest part is pairing your Remote with all the devices you want to control. To add your iPhone or iPod Touch as a device, click on Settings and Add Device. In a similar way to setting up an Apple TV with iTunes, you'll need to enter a four-digit passcode that pairs the two devices together.
Once your Remote is paired with iTunes or Apple TV, accessing your media is like using the iPod functionality on the iPhone but better, because you can also search your content — something that, ironically, is only available on older style iPods.
If music is playing you can easily pause it, skip backwards and forwards. Remote displays album art too. If you're using it to control your Apple TV you can also select movies, podcasts and TV shows via Remote and they start playing via your TV.
If you pair your Remote with iTunes, and you've got AirTunes stations on your network (and remember, Apple TV also doubles as an AirTunes station) you can toggle the AirTunes stations iTunes transmits music to in the settings screen of Remote app. If you set all AirTunes stations to On you can have the same music playing on all your base stations.
In my experience (which has now turned to every night when I'm at home) Remote works best if you set the Performance switch in the Settings menu to On. This causes Remote to stay connected to either iTunes or the Apple TV, and reduces the lag from when you switch the iPhone or iPod Touch out of sleep and when it displays the controls.
Australian Macworld's buying advice. At the sweet price of free, Apple has once again increased the value of all my Apple equipment by providing a seamless, portable and intuitive way for me to control my music. I love it.
Remote |
|
| Type | iPhone application |
| Rating |
|
| Pros | Free, Works with existing hardware, intuitive controls |
| Cons | Drains battery when connection maintained |
| SRP | Free |
| Manufacturer | Apple |
| Distributor | Apple, www.apple.com.au |
At the sweet price of free, Apple have once again increased the value of all my Apple equipment by providing a seamless, portable and intuitive way for me to control my music. I love it.
Steve Jobs's announcement that the software update to the iPod touch would cost money (in our case $24.99) as opposed to the software update to the iPhone, which was free (a much more attractive price point) went over like the proverbial anodised aluminium balloon at the Expo. Where a free software update adding a few widgets, a Mail client and an improved Map application would have been a no-brainer, the question must be asked: are they worth twenty-five bucks?
Matthew JC. Powell | Jan 24, 2008
HTC has more mobile devices in its range than you can poke a stick at — 19 at the time of writing. In other words, it has the entire market covered and offers a smartphone solution for just about everyone. However, why it needs so many is a bit of mystery as one model — the Touch Cruise — seems to tick most of the boxes smartphone users would have on their shopping list. HTC's customisation aids its usability and it packs plenty of features. Mac users will need to factor in extra costs for a memory card and — as it's a Windows Mobile device — sync software.
Anthony Caruana | May 20, 2008
Music should always be about fun and it's a word that is easily applied to this little application. Australian developer MachineCodex has been around a couple of years now with this app in various stages of beta, and version 1.0 of AudioCodex marks a milestone in the company's growth. So what can you do with it? AudioCodex is essentially an audio mashup tool with superb integration with Mac OS X's CoreAudio, iTunes and any Apple Loops you may have installed. The level of integration can't be overstated — serious work has gone into making AudioCodex a Mac experience from top to bottom.
David Holloway | Jun 3, 2008
The Turbo.264 is a useful piece of kit if you find yourself regularly converting movies from one format to another. While you won't find much speed gain on newer Macs, older PowerPC machines will see a significant speed gain when converting movies. At $199 the Turbo 264 is more expensive than a software-only solution, but if you're serious about converting your videos, the cost of the unit will quickly pay for itself.
Danny Gorog | Jun 24, 2008
