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Apple AirPlay Private Key Exposed, Opening Door to AirPort Express Emulators
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Not yet. This just means that it's now very possible for someone to develop an app to do it.
It was going to be a chapter in Jobs' autobiography too. LOL
Anyway an odd thin about airplay is the ability to stream just the sound from a video file in itunes. It can't be done but it can be done from iOS.
Anyway an odd thin about airplay is the ability to stream just the sound from a video file in itunes. It can't be done but it can be done from iOS.
They could do it but AirPlay targets are supposed to have good sound and the speakers on those items do not. So it makes sense that they haven't cause the idiot masses would hear that lousy sound and think their whatever was busted.
Well, thank you, I've heard of Home Sharing. I use it myself on my desktop and laptop. I was referring to an one-click streaming solution like Airtunes. More like "click there to stream music to my mac which is connected to my sound system" than "go to preferences, enable sharing; now wait while I browse your shared library".
I think you got it completely wrong here. How is my WiFi router which was given to me for free by my internet provider a luxury? Who talked about hacking my router? How could possibly a common router provide me with audio output?
And of course Apple is getting greedy by not adding Airtunes to other wireless solutions they sell. One more reason to skip them altogether and go for a hack or other software solution. Once again, don't get me wrong, I love Apple and their products, I but there are some use cases where they just don't care or have completely other interests.
Once again, my words are misinterpreted or you just don't understand.
I just wish to stream to my mac which is connected to my sound system from other Airtunes capable devices. That involves a hack only on my part and nothing at all to be done on other computers or iOS devices. Call me cheap, but that would be convenient to me and my friends.
And as I said before, I can see myself buying an Airport Express (although I would prefer the Airport Extreme, if it had an audio output) for a computer-less streaming setup, but for my current setup - which I think is the most common one - and budget I will opt for a tricky hack.
To sum up, all I want is a Banana-TV equivalent but just for audio. It looks like it's just a matter of time.
Both financially and from a space and energy consumption point of view, an Apple TV or an Airport Express is a more efficient solution for this. Apple tends to support only the efficient and simple solutions, not the cumbersome ones.
You know all well that the router is not free, you pay for through your monthly payments. The fact that your provider does not offer a cheaper service without such hardware freebies is just unfortunate. Would you be happy if Apple included a free Airport Express with all Macs (but naturally increased the price for the Mac)? There is nothing free, at least in the physical world (the digital world can be very close to free, see iOS apps).
So, how much do think Apple is asking for licensing their Airplay technology, I'd guess at most between $5-10.
Is your Mac (the one connected to your sound system) really cheaper than an Airport Express?
And if this is your only Mac, you can just use the Remote app to play the music on it from your iOS device.
I have no idea what a Banana-TV is but for all that you want to do, an Airport Express it seems would do the trick. Is an Airport Express much more expensive than your Banana-TV?
I second this. I already have an AppleTV hooked up to our main A/V center, plus several AEs connected to self-contained CD radios in our kitchen, bedroom, etc. What's missing is the client I can run on my Mac that advertises it as another AirPlay remote speaker so iTunes running on the server in the basement can stream to it. Would be great if it included the ability to control iTunes like the iOS Remote App does.
With home sharing, your old iPod Touch already does this. It's just that you get to 'pull' the music from your library to your Touch, rather than pushing it from the computer to the Touch. Really, what more do you want?
In reality, this is a much better solution than acting as an Airport Express, which only allows you to play one music stream to any or all devices. With home sharing, different devices can listen to different music at the same time.
Agreed. I never said that this is the most elegant solution.
But why should I get extra hardware (environmentally unfriendly) when I have my Mac on most of the time anyway. You know, I already have a computer (connected to speakers) so computer + Airport Express is more energy/money/space inefficient than a computer alone.
If I renew my service, I pay the same money and of course I don't get new hardware. Hardware freebies are for new customers/connections in many services other than internet connections. Subscribe to a satellite tv service for example, get a free dish. This is beyond me anyway, it's a standard policy for all providers where I live. I just got this modem/router with my subscription and so far it works fine. No need to replace it.
This makes no sense. Not everyone needs or desires an Airport Express. I never asked Apple for free hardware.
Do they license Airplay technology to software developers? I don't think so.
Show me an app on the Mac App Store (or wherever) that acts like an Airport Express and i'll buy it at once.
How can you possibly compare a Mac to an Airport Express? I bought a Mac to have a COMPUTER not to stream music wirelessly.
What you should think about is: How hard is for a Mac to act like an Airport Express with the proper software? It shouldn't.
Why it there no software like this? Apple does not want to.
Fair enough; It's their technology. Sometimes though, people want different things. Glad to see quite a few people here want the same as me.
Banana TV is software. It is $7.99. It makes your Mac act like an Apple TV - does not support audio only though.
It does something like: I can stream a video i just shot from my iPhone to my huge iMac screen - no AppleTV needed, no need to transfer the video to the iMac, no cables.
Now tell me this is not a better solution for casual use than having an AppleTV in terms of money, space, energy, hardware. You see, I don't even have a TV!
Nope, because I want everybody to play their own libraries to some proper speaker, not internal speakers
I have an example, too.
I do have Airport Expresses and ATV2s around my house and often use it to play music throughout the house, especially during holidays and parties.
Problem is in my den, I have several computers and a good 5.1 surround system, but no Airport Express. It sure would be nice to pipe sound into there too.
Home Sharing does this. Use the Remote app and choose the computer to control if you want iOS remote control.
And not everybody needs the free WiFi router you got from your ISP.
As said 100 times already, Airfoil Speakers. Yes, you need the Airfoil app but to me that is close enough to acting like an Airport Express unless you want to stream music from your iPad to your iPhone.
Again, what scenario cannot be solved with either the remote app, plugging in your or some guest's iOS device or iPod or connecting to guest's iTunes library via Home Sharing?
Let's see, a guest's iOS device or iPod would have to 'controlled' from your Mac and not from the device itself, ditto for a laptop (though the trial version of Airfoil should transmit a song or two without problems for free wirelessly from anybody's computer to your computer).
True, but if you've just spent £450 on the receiver and another £100 or so on speakers you'd maybe resent having to shell out more for AirPlay.
They do appreciate notice of such things, but you could try using a friendly tone.
I've never quite understood the mindset that '$600 is ok for a PS3, $300 is ok for an iPod Touch, $2000 is ok for a pieced gaming rig, $200+$30/month forever is ok for a smartphone....but spend another $30 to get a necessary accessory??? You bastards are ripping me off!!'
Also, people should really plan ahead and not expect others (say, Apple) to accomplish setting up their home for them. Expecting and whining about getting any speaker and any song on any device to communicate without YOU having a bit of forethought is silly. If you have 10 rooms with speakers, then set them up right with potential 'friends' iPods' hookup somewhere. Put your iTunes server on the most intelligent computer for whole house audio and set it up appropriately. You should be happy it no longer costs $10000+ to do such a thing. Whether it's a few AEXs or other means, you can get what you want, go do it.
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Unless, as mentioned earlier in this thread, that 3rd party hardware includes the ability to upgrade its firmware. In that case, all customers will be required to install a mandatory "security" bug fix which installs support for a new private key, and everything proceeds as normal.
Heck, it's even possible that Apple might already have planned for this contingency, and instead of just having one private key, they may have come up with a set of many private keys to choose from, and also preprogrammed support for all of those keys into every properly licensed accessory. Maybe they just planned to use the first key up until it was compromised, and then move on to another.
Now, they might just push a new iTunes upgrade that blacklists the compromised key and moves on to another one -- and at the same time, instruct all licensed equipment to also add that key to their own blacklist (while continuing to maintain seamless support for all the remainder of the preprogrammed keys) the next time the licensed equipment connects to an authorized audio source.
(Unless, maybe the reverse engineer in this case already anticipated such an eventuality, and actually extracted all of the keys -- assuming, of course, that there really are multiple keys. If that were the case, then the reverse engineer hypothetically might have defeated the entire benefit that Apple might have derived from hypothetically having multiple keys to choose from in the first place...)
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Hi
There are a number of AirPlay apps in the App Store that allow an iDevice to be recognized as an Apple TV, as mentioned, AirView is one of those particular apps -- and it even offers streaming from one iDevice to another, as one of the other devices is a virtual Apple TV.
Why is it that much more difficult to create an app that receives audio only AirPlay? I don't know -- but I'm not a veteran iOS app developer.
I think, with iOS now capable of being in the Home Sharing loop the demand for audio only streaming to iDevices using AirPlay -- instead of some third-party solution -- is extremely low.
You already can, it's called Home Sharing, which is also available on your iDevice using iOS 4.3 and later.
There are a number of AirPlay apps in the App Store that allow an iDevice to be recognized as an Apple TV, as mentioned, AirView is one of those particular apps -- and it even offers streaming from one iDevice to another, as one of the other devices is a virtual Apple TV.
Why is it that much more difficult to create an app that receives audio only AirPlay? I don't know -- but I'm not a veteran iOS app developer.
I think, with iOS now capable of being in the Home Sharing loop the demand for audio only streaming to iDevices using AirPlay -- instead of some third-party solution -- is extremely low.