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iHomeAudio and Others to Offer AirPlay Peripherals

Does Airport Express not work with iTunes 10?

It works better than ever.

iTunes 10 gives you the ability to control individual volume levels for the Computer and the Airport Express.
 
iHome has a nasty habit of releasing a product, and then waiting months to bring it to market. For example, their alarm clock dock for the iPad. It was announced in late July. About a week after the PR, I called iHome and the person was CLUELESS. Its been over a month and its still not shipping.
 
Sminman86 said:
Does Airport Express not work with iTunes 10?

It works better than ever.

iTunes 10 gives you the ability to control individual volume levels for the Computer and the Airport Express.
Click to expand...

Nice find!

I hadn't noticed that before. :eek:

Screen shot 2010-09-07 at 18.36.25.png
 
wismann said:
True for WDS (repeater) mode.
Not true for client mode?! (working with different brands of WiFi equipment causes problems sometimes, though)
edit: Mr. Hardwood was faster, congrats ;)
Click to expand...

Mine has been working with Qwest's older Actiontec wifi DSL modem for years. Had a little trouble at first, but an Apple firmware update solved it. No skips, no problems.

It would definitely be cool to have AirTunes/Play built into a small system like this iHome to easily add to other rooms. Esp if there were controls on the device, although this one doesn't appear to offer that.
 
Full of Win said:
iHome has a nasty habit of releasing a product, and then waiting months to bring it to market. For example, their alarm clock dock for the iPad. It was announced in late July. About a week after the PR, I called iHome and the person was CLUELESS. Its been over a month and its still not shipping.
Click to expand...

I think you mean "announcing" a product. Many companies operate that way.
 
zhenya said:
b) That method still has nothing on letting us stream different music from one Itunes library. My iPhone only contains 1/3 of my total music library. Why should the content have to reside on that device when it's already present on the network connected to the same Airplay devices??
Click to expand...

It makes sense for my scenario. I want to stream music to my rooms during the day without having to turn on my mac pro business workstation and run its hard drives.
 
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...

You guys are overcomplicating this and not doing the research. You need to watch the presentation from the Sep. keynote. Airplay is replacing Airtunes. Basically they are adding video capability to Airtunes and renaming it because the 'tunes suffix no longer works since video will also be supported. You are right that iPad can't at the moment stream via Airtunes, but when iOS 4.2 comes to the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch in November all three devices will be able to stream audio to any Airport Express and both audio and video to any :apple:TV via the newly rebranded/renamed/reprogrammed Airplay.

The biggest difference being that an Airport Express has a speaker output for powered analog speakers and that for audio through :apple:TV you will have to have something compatible with HDMI.
 
-FlyAuburn- said:
The biggest difference being that an Airport Express has a speaker output for powered analog speakers and that for audio through :apple:TV you will have to have something compatible with HDMI.
Click to expand...

Almost right except that Apple TV also has a Toslink digital audio out.
 
Sonos music system has had this topic covered for a few years already, and they're great at it. Their systems has rhapsody, pandora, sirius, last fm, and thousands of radio stations from around the world.

You can use your iPhone/iPod touch/ipad via wifi to control your music all around your house. Instead of the typical dock station where you have to leave your phone behind.

This month, sonos is releasing their native ipad app!

Check them out fellas: http://sonos.com
 
zhenya said:
Almost right except that Apple TV also has a Toslink digital audio out.
Click to expand...

Point is, it doesn't have analog. So basically, the :apple:TV requires a newer TV with HDMI, or an HT system with either digital input. Plain speakers won't work, neither will TVs with analog only. Gotta plan for that.
 
I'm beginning to think you won't be able to stream your music from your iTunes to your iPhone/iPad with AirPlay. It's convenient how it will work with all airplay devices, except when it infringes upon how much money Apple can make by charging you to sync your music when it's completely unnecessary.
 
callme said:
Still no thoughts about is these 3rd PArty devices will play tracks with FairPlay DRM on them?
Click to expand...

Should be no problem.

The old AirTunes protocol was encrypted, but the audio that went over them was post-codec. So iTunes would decrypt the m4p file, un-AAC the audio, then re-encrypt it with the AirTunes session key and send it to the AirPort Express.

I assume AirPlay is the same.

The bigger question remains whether or not AirPlay will be allowed for third party media apps on iOS devices. That is, can Pandora or XM Sirius use it?
 
spimp31 said:
I'm beginning to think you won't be able to stream your music from your iTunes to your iPhone/iPad with AirPlay.
Click to expand...

Yeah. That would be the next awesome thing. But that's not what AirPlay is about. You could <control> you iTunes with you iOS device and send the audio stream to whatever AirPlay sink you like. But at the moment you can't play tunes from your computer to the headphone port of your iOS natively. There surely is 'an app for that', but I want to see this happen seamlessly and fully integrated - maybe in one of the next iterations.
 
nsayer said:
Here's one.
Click to expand...

Attention. This one seems to be stereo only, it can't handle 5.1 streams. So it won't work with your Apple TV. Also, it's more than half the price of an ATV. C'mon, is good old analog audio already dead? For modern people at Apple it is, obviously.
edit: it works of course if the ATV can downmix channels to stereo before output, which I don't know.
 
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baryon said:
Yes but that's an Airport Express, which is a router and most people nowadays get their routers from their service provider, so they cannot use their own router, because they have an integrated modem and you have no idea what the password is and they don't help you if you're not using their router.

Sure, I can connect the Airport Express to the Ethernet wire that comes out of my ISP's router/modem, but then I would have two routers, one routing the other. And that's extremely stupid.
Click to expand...

No, you tell the Airport Express to not act as a router. It's in the braindead-simple Airport Utility options for exactly that reason (actually, you tell it you already have a router, and tell it if you already have a wireless connection; you don't have to think about the fact that you're disabling the router circuitry on it).

You could make the case that this is a waste of silicone, and you'd be right. But, in my home network we've got four devices which could act as routers (the Airport Extreme, Airport Express, our old Buffalo 802.11b access point, and the DSL modem), and only one is actually fulfilling that role (the Buffalo access point, for various reasons).

If ALL you want is an audio extension and don't want to bother with the wireless connection stuff, there are a billion and one ways to do this at your local Radio Shack. Apple's not going to provide a minimal-waste solution for every possible situation. The Airport Express is cheap (I think we picked up ours for $85 at one of the discounted Apple stores) and miserly (uses less electricity than any of our other networking components), so it's not a whole lot more to ask for if you want beyond the "basic" "just send music to those speakers" functionality.
 
nelmat said:
No you don't - what more kit do you need? I've got one sat here, nothing attached to it apart from the feed from the wall and it's mains power. It appears to be working beautifully.
Click to expand...

The Airport Extreme does not have a DSL modem in it. It has a WAN port for connecting TO a DSL or Cable modem. See http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/specs.html.

If the Airport Extreme is plugged directly into your wall and working great, then the Airport Express would likewise plug right into your wall and work great. See the Airport Express tech specs here: http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/specs.html. Note that there's very little difference between the two. Let me highlight the differences:

1. Express is draft-n not final-n for Wireless; this is a certification difference, though, and I've never seen something not work on Airport Express which works on a final-n spec base station.

2. Extreme can use 2.4GHz and 5GHz at the same time; Express can use one or the other.

3. Express can handle higher humidiy (90% vs 80%), although, again, this is primarily a paper difference.

4. Extreme has three LAN ports (the only LAN connection on the Express is the wireless)

5. Extreme's wireless can support 50 connections at a time, while Express can only support 20.

6. Extreme supports a hard drive connected to its USB port.

7. Express can connect to a speaker to stream music via AirTunes.

8. Extreme supports "sleeping" Bonjour services on connected computers (ex, computer can go to sleep and another computer will still be able to connect to its iTunes service, waking it only when needed); with the Express you'd need to never allow your computer to sleep for always-on Bonjour services.

Seems pretty cut and dry. Unless you're taking advantage of one of those differences, you'd be just as well off saving money and getting the Express.
 
spimp31 said:
It's convenient how it will work with all airplay devices, except when it infringes upon how much money Apple can make by charging you to sync your music when it's completely unnecessary.
Click to expand...

Huh? You pay to sync an iPod? Do you have any interest in owning a bridge?
 
BOSE acoustic wave music system ii with sound link

Hey,

I just bought a BOSE acoustic wave music system ii with sound link (same sort of thing as airplay) i was wondering if anyone would recon it would be worth returning it and waiting for something to come of airplay and see if BOSE release an update etc or a product with the receiver built in.

Also does anyone have the BOSE speakers, would welcome any feedback...

Cheers,
 
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