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2 Airport Express questions: AirPlay from Mac/iOS and wireless off?

fruitninja

fruitninja

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 28, 2014
133
4
1. If I understand correctly, you can stream any audio to AirPort Express via AirPlay what's playing on your iOS device (such as Rdio playing in a browser window) but you can only stream iTunes from a Mac - is that distinction correct? So, you can't stream your Beats music stream from your Mac via AirPlay (though I guess that's going to change soon).

2. Hopefully not a strange request from a wireless router (actually, many 3rd party routers can do that) but can you turn on and off the actual Wi-Fi signal via AirPort Utility when you plug in a Mac or PC to the Ethernet port? Say, you live in a smaller apartment and you don't want it to interfere with your sleep.
 
fruitninja said:
1. If I understand correctly, you can stream any audio to AirPort Express via AirPlay what's playing on your iOS device (such as Rdio playing in a browser window) but you can only stream iTunes from a Mac - is that distinction correct? So, you can't stream your Beats music stream from your Mac via AirPlay (though I guess that's going to change soon).

2. Hopefully not a strange request from a wireless router (actually, many 3rd party routers can do that) but can you turn on and off the actual Wi-Fi signal via AirPort Utility when you plug in a Mac or PC to the Ethernet port? Say, you live in a smaller apartment and you don't want it to interfere with your sleep.
Click to expand...

1. You should be able to stream any audio from iOS. For OSX, you can also do the same http://osxdaily.com/2012/08/01/stream-all-mac-system-audio-over-airplay-os-x/

2. Yes, you can turn wireless off. When you open up Airport utility select the "Off" selection under the wireless tab.
 

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fruitninja said:
1. If I understand correctly, you can stream any audio to AirPort Express via AirPlay what's playing on your iOS device (such as Rdio playing in a browser window) but you can only stream iTunes from a Mac - is that distinction correct? So, you can't stream your Beats music stream from your Mac via AirPlay (though I guess that's going to change soon).

2. Hopefully not a strange request from a wireless router (actually, many 3rd party routers can do that) but can you turn on and off the actual Wi-Fi signal via AirPort Utility when you plug in a Mac or PC to the Ethernet port? Say, you live in a smaller apartment and you don't want it to interfere with your sleep.
Click to expand...


1. That will work fine. The Express will show as a standard audio output device you can choose.

2. Yes. You can disable the Wi-Fi in AirPort Utility.
 
Re 1: Strangely, the Airport Express manual says I can stream only from iTunes. However the guy in the Apple Sore demonstrated me I can stream any content -as you said.
 
fruitninja said:
Re 1: Strangely, the Airport Express manual says I can stream only from iTunes. However the guy in the Apple Sore demonstrated me I can stream any content -as you said.
Click to expand...


I believe the feature was added to view an Express as an output device in Snow Leopard or Lion. Originally, only iTunes could do it.
 
The Express manual is outdated and incorrect on that point. The ability to stream all system audio without using a third party application wasn't built into Mac OS X until 10.8.
 
there is a program called airfoil, that will let you pick one program and send the audio from that. You can also choose the entire system audio.
It's nice so you don't have mail dings coming over your speakers with your music.

if the music you want is accessed via the web, look at fluid, it lets you make a "single site browser" which is a separate app that only browses that one website. It will keep any auto-play noise on other websites you visit in your main browser out of your music stream

Altemose is right, the ability to add an airplay device as a sound destination is a pretty recent addition in OS X, so the airport manual is just out of date.


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2- not sure why you want to turn it off and on.
if you're worried about someone else sending audio to it, you can put a password on airplay, so only you can connect.

it's probably easier to plug it into a power strip or a timer of some sort and turn it off and on that way.

also, you'll want the airport to join your network, not extend.
  • Joining is what your computer or phone does to your existing wireless network
  • extending joins your network, and then re-creates the wifi signal so it reaches further from the main base station. This will cause speed drops for any client that connects to the express' wifi. if you're in a small apartment, you don't need this, and it can cause interference problems. It also doesn't work unless the main router is another airport (express or extreme)
 
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Thank you for your additional recommendations, esp. Fluid.

waw74 said:
also, you'll want the airport to join your network, not extend.
  • Joining is what your computer or phone does to your existing wireless network
  • extending joins your network, and then re-creates the wifi signal so it reaches further from the main base station. This will cause speed drops for any client that connects to the express' wifi. if you're in a small apartment, you don't need this, and it can cause interference problems. It also doesn't work unless the main router is another airport (express or extreme)
Click to expand...

However I don't understand this whole section and if it applies at all to a single router in a studio apartment setup.
 
fruitninja said:
Thank you for your additional recommendations, esp. Fluid.



However I don't understand this whole section and if it applies at all to a single router in a studio apartment setup.
Click to expand...

If I understand it, your setup will be:

Modem --Ethernet--> Express (Create a Network) --Audio Cable--> Speakers

In that case you would set it to create the network and just check off AirPlay in AirPort Utility.
 
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