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iHomeAudio and Others to Offer AirPlay Peripherals

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TUAW notes that iHome is the first company to officially announce an AirPlay-compatible product last week. Details are scarce, but iHome posted the above product photo described as "iHome AirPlay wireless speaker system with rechargeable battery." The speaker system will be available for the holiday season and will support Apple's new AirPlay protocol.

AirPlay was announced during the iPod media event and allows you to stream music to your AppleTV or other AirPlay-enabled device. Apple also announced that AirPlay will be integrated into a number of 3rd party speaker docks, AV receivers and stereo systems.
Say you have one set of speakers in your bedroom, one in the office, and one in the living room. For the ultimate sonic panorama, you can stream your tunes to more than one room simultaneously, so you’ll never lose the beat, no matter where you are in the house.
Click to expand...
AirPlay also sends along artist information, song titles and album artwork on supported devices.

Apple's AirPlay page only lists music compatibility for these third part devices, but Apple's upcoming iOS update will also support streaming video-out support to the Apple TV.

Article Link: iHomeAudio and Others to Offer AirPlay Peripherals
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/09/07/ihomeaudio-and-others-to-offer-airplay-peripherals/
Good idea, but as highlighted on The Gadget Show (UK TV show, featured the Airport Express last night in a wireless music devices feature) they really just need to let it stream different songs/etc to different rooms from a central computer at the same time.
 
AirPlay?

This is the first I've heard of this feature.
Is it in iTunes 10 or in an iPod?
As I don't own any iPods but do have iTunes 10 on my iMac, I may be very interested in this.
Thanks!
 
So, this is gonna provide competition to Sonos then :)

Any thoughts on price yet?
 
Porco said:
Good idea, but as highlighted on The Gadget Show (UK TV show, featured the Airport Express last night in a wireless music devices feature) they really just need to let it stream different songs/etc to different rooms from a central computer at the same time.
Click to expand...

That's a cool idea. But I'm just curious what the application of this would be. I wouldn't want this but I'm curious how you would use that function.
 
Howardchief said:
That's a cool idea. But I'm just curious what the application of this would be. I wouldn't want this but I'm curious how you would use that function.
Click to expand...

It would be useful if you were having a party and wanted some dancin' tunes in one room and something a little more laid back in another.

As it is though, just having to buy speakers to make it work rather than a great big kerching Sonos system, I think it is more than adequate.
 
Okay but how the hell is this supposed to work? I mean I see that it's over WiFi, but how are you speakers going to log into the WiFi network without a keyboard and a screen, and type in the password?

Also, why not make a small device that would allow you to use your existing, analog speakers and just plug them into the device, that would stream the music from your computer? I don't want small battery powered speakers, I already have those in my MacBook Pro.
 
baryon said:
Okay but how the hell is this supposed to work? I mean I see that it's over WiFi, but how are you speakers going to log into the WiFi network without a keyboard and a screen, and type in the password?

Also, why not make a small device that would allow you to use your existing, analog speakers and just plug them into the device, that would stream the music from your computer? I don't want small battery powered speakers, I already have those in my MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

You can already do that by plugging speakers into an Airport Express.

This is a great idea. Hopefully the sound quality will be better than my FM transmitter!
 
baryon said:
Okay but how the hell is this supposed to work? I mean I see that it's over WiFi, but how are you speakers going to log into the WiFi network without a keyboard and a screen, and type in the password?
Click to expand...

Indeed. People seem to be making an awful lot of assumptions about how this service is supposed to work and getting very excited, but we're very light on details. People keep going crazy about transferring content from the iPad to an Apple TV, but if you do can you use any other applications? Has Apple discussed the rights issues with any content providers? Does it require coding into apps specially? Can it even work in a web stream through mobile Safari (I'd wager no)? Does this mean that all that traffic goes through my internal wi-fi network twice?

Phazer
 
Now that is smart!
Also isn't that a massive power waste - having lots of these devices in every room in your house so if you just so happen to walk around you "won't miss a beat"? Lordy Loo the horror of that happening.
 
I wonder if Apple is going to update the Airport Express to be Airplay compatible or just let the APX wither on the vine. I'd much rather use APX to stream to powered speakers I already own. I've been doing this w/ AirTunes for years, but of course the iPad can't stream via Airtunes, only Airplay.
 
Airport Express to be Airtunes compatible?

I hope so. I use Airtunes on the Airport Express, and it would be nice if Airplay would also work on it.


EDIT - I meant to say Airplay in the title. Duh.
 
Is this an OS feature or iTunes feature? I.e. could I use it with other players such as Spotify? I don't really use iTunes that often, for podcasts only.
 
Airfoil?

Sweet! Now to hope that their protocol licensing is as open that Airfoil can implement it on their client software.
 
Porco said:
Good idea, but as highlighted on The Gadget Show (UK TV show, featured the Airport Express last night in a wireless music devices feature) they really just need to let it stream different songs/etc to different rooms from a central computer at the same time.
Click to expand...

bandrews said:
It would be useful if you were having a party and wanted some dancin' tunes in one room and something a little more laid back in another.

As it is though, just having to buy speakers to make it work rather than a great big kerching Sonos system, I think it is more than adequate.
Click to expand...

That's probably too complicated and too niche a power feature for Apple to include. As it is, you can hack it by having different devices Airplay to different speakers. (iPod touch streams to one room, computer streams to another, for instance.)

Chupa Chupa said:
I wonder if Apple is going to update the Airport Express to be Airplay compatible or just let the APX wither on the vine. I'd much rather use APX to stream to powered speakers I already own. I've been doing this w/ AirTunes for years, but of course the iPad can't stream via Airtunes, only Airplay.
Click to expand...

Does Airport Express not work with iTunes 10? #curious#
 
baryon said:
Okay but how the hell is this supposed to work? I mean I see that it's over WiFi, but how are you speakers going to log into the WiFi network without a keyboard and a screen, and type in the password?

Also, why not make a small device that would allow you to use your existing, analog speakers and just plug them into the device, that would stream the music from your computer? I don't want small battery powered speakers, I already have those in my MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

it's very simple, this already happens with airport express - the speakers merely appear on a pulldown of available sound output options in iTunes. Very, very simple and already available. Also the device doesn't have to be batter powered.

You can already use your existing speakers and plug them into your mac or your airport express - nothing you're asking for hasn't already been developed and easily available.

All of this technology already exists for your mac, and I've been using it for a couple of years - I think you've been missing out!
 
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