iHomeAudio and Others to Offer AirPlay Peripherals

[newagemac]

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.

I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous statement. If anything it is the other way around.

 

[joueboy]

Accessory!

I hope another 3rd party or Apple itself will sell an accessory only device without the speakers. I still want to use my own speakers instead of using the mediocre iHome speakers. Don't get me wrong but for some people they don't want to settle to this kind of speakers. For some a couple years old spreakers is way still better than the iHome. This would be one of the best way for Apple to sell another accesory at the premium price hahaha.

 

[MattInOz]

I hope another 3rd party or Apple itself will sell an accessory only device without the speakers. I still want to use my own speakers instead of using the mediocre iHome speakers. Don't get me wrong but for some people they don't want to settle to this kind of speakers. For some a couple years old spreakers is way still better than the iHome. This would be one of the best way for Apple to sell another accesory at the premium price hahaha.

Well the problem for Apple is they have to sell something that works out of the packet. As few cables as practical and have standard ports they can rely on. Or at least a reasonable assumption of equipment needed to make it work.

So audio out is no issue, but power is it's not like the sort of audio devices you'd want to plug in to have come with a standard accessory port that provides power out for audio in.

So Apple either need to make it battery powered, like a mouse or keyboard, or build in a power supply. They could use USB and stream back digital audio but is there a big enough demand there?

Once you add a power supply like the 10w usb brick then your getting awfully close to the express anyway.

I can see Apple producing a cheaper smaller airport express when they do the next update on the airport family. after all at the same price as the new AppleTV it's a bit over priced.

 

[b11051973]

I hope another 3rd party or Apple itself will sell an accessory only device without the speakers. I still want to use my own speakers instead of using the mediocre iHome speakers. Don't get me wrong but for some people they don't want to settle to this kind of speakers. For some a couple years old spreakers is way still better than the iHome. This would be one of the best way for Apple to sell another accesory at the premium price hahaha.

Apple has made such an accessory for a number of years now. It is called the Airport Express and will continue to work with Airplay. At least that's what I've read.

 

[jettredmont]

plugging speakers into the airport express isn't the best situation for some people. for example you can only configure the airport express with other apple wifi routers. In my apartment I use the existing wireless network and internet for my computers and printers. So I cannot just buy an airport express to plug my speakers into because it will not attach on to the existing network.
So what i'm hoping apple will come out with is a small box that will connect to any wireless network, not one using only apple routers, which i can then plug into my speakers.
Because $99 for something that i use ONLY to stream music to my $119 speakers is pretty silly

Not sure what you're talking about here. Airport Express uses the same wireless and wired ethernet standards as everyone else. It works with Windows machines as well as Macs. It works acting as a router, attached to an Airport Extreme base station acting as a router, or attached to the phone company's cheapo ADSL box that also acts as a router.

I have had fewer issues (well, none) with attaching our Airport Express to multiple DSL and Cable networks than I had with Netgear, D-Link, and Buffalo gear attaching to a subset of those networks.

That all having been said, value is always in the eye of the beholder. $220 overall for a wireless music system isn't a bad deal. Note that most of the time the audio processing equipment is at least as expensive as the speakers it attaches to (no sense having $500 speakers and hooking them up to a $300 amplifier!), so the AE unit being less expensive than your speakers is not unusual in the way you think it is Still, if you want a cheaper system you can go without the AE, or you can use a third-party system for piping music wirelessly through the house. If you want quality, though, you won't get it for <$100 with the "piping" piece. Sonos has a good system out there as well, but they start at $350 just for a headless player (the role the Airport Express plays).

 

[doctor-don]

I hope another 3rd party or Apple itself will sell an accessory only device without the speakers. I still want to use my own speakers instead of using the mediocre iHome speakers. Don't get me wrong but for some people they don't want to settle to this kind of speakers. For some a couple years old spreakers is way still better than the iHome. This would be one of the best way for Apple to sell another accesory at the premium price hahaha.

It will still cost more than it should considering the source.

 

[Pieira]

Airplay TV?

What are the chances of a third party making a TV that supports airplay? Would Apple allow this?

 

[zhenya]

I hope another 3rd party or Apple itself will sell an accessory only device without the speakers. I still want to use my own speakers instead of using the mediocre iHome speakers. Don't get me wrong but for some people they don't want to settle to this kind of speakers. For some a couple years old spreakers is way still better than the iHome. This would be one of the best way for Apple to sell another accesory at the premium price hahaha.

The iHome speakers are just the first demonstration of the possibilities available with AirPlay. I too would rather continue to use my stand-alone stereo systems that I have my various Airport Express devices connected to. What this makes possible is for ANY electronics manufacturer to make any device they like with AirPlay built into the device. This could be a set of stand-alone speakers like the iHome, it could be a stereo receiver with built in display like we will likely see from Denon and others. It could be a table radio or alarm clock like I hope to eventually see from Tivoli. While I would have liked to see Apple use a more open protocol, being that I'm already invested in the iTunes infrastructure, I think this is a GREAT development, and it's great to see this system finally receiving attention again after all these years.

 

[rfahey]

How do you have the Airport Expresses set up?
You need them to "Join a Wireless Network" and not "Participate in a WDS Network".

Use the Airport Utility to look at the settings of the Airport Express units, check that they are set to "Join a Wireless Network".

They're actually setup to extend the network. You think that's going to make a difference?

 

[callme]

They're actually setup to extend the network. You think that's going to make a difference?

Yep, change the setting, not to extend but simply Join.
I had the same issues of interruptions, until I changed the setting.

 

[rfahey]

Yep, change the setting, not to extend but simply Join.
I had the same issues of interruptions, until I changed the setting.

Dang. Was hoping to get the best of both worlds out of my APX

 

[JAT]

There are a thousand little black boxes that can be used to go from S/PDIF to analog.

Here's one.

Sure, but why string a bunch of little things together when wireless is what you are trying to achieve? Better to plan it out well.

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.

I think you are mixing a bunch of needs/wants together that aren't compatible with reality, let alone Apple's products. What do you actually want to do? Someone has a system to do it, maybe Apple.