I am sometimes suprised that people don’t realise what certain bits of Apple kit can do, particularly around their home media setup.Airport Express and AirTunes The Airport Express is more than just a wireless access point, it’s pure classic Apple in it’s simplicity and power and for me it’s most unique feature is AirTunes. I have an Airport Express at home so that i can stream my music from iTunes to my home cinema system (downstairs in the living room). The Airport Express is plugged into the wall behind my TV with a stereo jack out the back and into the surround system
Remote App for iPhone/iPod Touch
The real fun however comes from using the free Remote App for the iPhone/iPod Touch, I can sit comfortably anywhere in the house, attach my iPhone to my home network and stream my entire iTunes library to my living room stereo.
The Remote app works pretty much like the iPod application that’s built into the iPhone/Touch. It has Genius functionality, track ratings and (in the case of my setup) I have the Last.fm app running in the background on my MacBook Pro, so any track I play via the iPhone is still scrobbled to my Last.fm page in real time.
Apple limit what you can stream to the Airport Express to only iTunes music but I’ve recently took my wireless streaming a step further I’ve been trialling Airfoil by Rogue Amoeba so that I’m now in a position to stream music from other great media software and websites (Spotify and Blip.fm for example). Airfoil basically hijacks your Mac or Windows PC sound output and lets you redirect it to the speakers plugged into your Airport Express.
Upon launching Airfoil I tell it which application to hijack (Spotify has been hijacked here, but for Blip.fm I would select my default browser as the application), play some tracks from the relevant music software and downstairs in the living room there is streaming music outside of the iTunes application.
