Rogue Amoeba Announces Airfoil 5 With Bluetooth Support, Revamped Interface

[MacRumors]

Rogue Amoeba today announced the launch of Airfoil 5, introducing an updated version of its popular software that allows users to transmit any audio from their Macs or PCs to their home audio systems. Airfoil 5 includes a revamped interface with new Retina-compatible graphics and design improvements that include longer volume sliders in the main Airfoil window.

More importantly, Airfoil 5 introduces several new features, including Bluetooth support, a new Airfoil Satellite companion app, and Speaker Groups. With Bluetooth support, Airfoil is able to send audio to Bluetooth devices, including speakers and headphones, expanding Airfoil beyond the Apple TV, AirPort Express, iOS devices, and Macs.

That means users can send music to the thousands of different Bluetooth speakers, headphones, and headsets available! A music app like Spotify can be sent to a high-quality Bluetooth speaker (or multiple Bluetooth speakers!), while the rest of the computer's sounds come through the Mac's speakers.

Airfoil Satellite is a companion app that lets audio be sent to Macs, PCs, and iOS devices. Running Airfoil Satellite on one of these devices will turn them into audio receivers, and the software also allows for the remote control of supported apps like Spotify. It's possible to adjust volume, skip tracks, pause music, and more.

With Speaker Groups, it's possible to group up multiple speakers to send audio to more than one speaker at the same time. All the speakers in a home can be grouped together for house-wide music playback or organized into rooms for playing music in a specific area.

Other new features include silence monitoring, which will automatically disconnect Airfoil if there's no music being played, custom equalizer presets, sync adjustments, options to hide speakers, and an improved Instant On feature that will capture audio from already-running apps.

Airfoil for Mac or PC can be downloaded from the Rogue Amoeba website for $29. There's also a free trial for first time users who want to check out the software before purchasing.

Article Link: Rogue Amoeba Announces Airfoil 5 With Bluetooth Support, Revamped Interface

 

[Xgm541]

This is a neat app. I've been using it for a few years. Glad to see the updates...

 

[tliede20]

I love AirFoil, and I'm happy to see it advancing, the UI is very nice! I like the ability to group now, I also like the fact that it allows me to stream to bluetooth and other sources too, that makes me never purchase sonos

 

[HopefulHumanist]

I'm having trouble understanding the utility of this app. Don't iMacs and all MacBooks come with Bluetooth? They can already send audio to Bluetooth devices and AirPlay devices.

Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[nardi]

I'm having trouble understanding the utility of this app. Don't iMacs and all MacBooks come with Bluetooth? They can already send audio to Bluetooth devices and AirPlay devices.

Maybe I'm missing something.

You are right. But they can only send audio to one device at a time (unless you use iTunes to send to more then 1 airplay device?). I can use Airfoil to send music from Spotify playing on my Macbook Pro to my Apple TV connected to my home stereo, a speaker outside connected to an Airport Express and to two other speakers connected to two iPads in two different rooms (you can use an iPhone or iPad as a receiver with their companion app). The music is all perfectly synced on each device and speaker. It is really great software.

 

[RC Mike]

I used to love Rogue Amoeba, but my last set of experiences with them was awful. Audio Hijack used to be one of my favorite, most reliable programs. Their new version kept failing, their support person couldn't resolve the issue, and they wanted to go to war with me before refunding my $25 upgrade. Never again.

If you like their stuff, use it. Just pray you never have an issue. They turn into unpleasant jerks quickly.

 

[PJL500]

($15- upgrade)

 

[HopefulHumanist]

You are right. But they can only send audio to one device at a time (unless you use iTunes to send to more then 1 airplay device?). I can use Airfoil to send music from Spotify playing on my Macbook Pro to my Apple TV connected to my home stereo, a speaker outside connected to an Airport Express and to two other speakers connected to two iPads in two different rooms (you can use an iPhone or iPad as a receiver with their companion app). The music is all perfectly synced on each device and speaker. It is really great software.

Ok, I see what you mean; seems like that would be great for a house party. Thanks for replying.

 

[MuzakaEklekta]

I just don't get the fascination with Bluetooth audio. Don't people care about audio quality any more? AirPlay FTW.

 

[mbdownunder]

I love this app. I've been using it almost daily for 4 years to stream music from Pandora in Chrome to an Airport Express connected to my stereo. I'm happy to pay $15 to upgrade to the new version. Keep up the good work, Rogue Amoeba!

 

[Puonti]

Does the transmitter software and the iOS receivers support the apt-x codec for better audio quality?

 

[plattform]

You are right. But they can only send audio to one device at a time (unless you use iTunes to send to more then 1 airplay device?). I can use Airfoil to send music from Spotify playing on my Macbook Pro to my Apple TV connected to my home stereo, a speaker outside connected to an Airport Express and to two other speakers connected to two iPads in two different rooms (you can use an iPhone or iPad as a receiver with their companion app). The music is all perfectly synced on each device and speaker. It is really great software.

This is quite literally the biggest update to any software I've been using in years. The basic premise of Airfoil is that you can broadcast any stream of audio from your mac to multiple Airplay devices in your house, either connected to an airport express, or standalone like a newer receiver with Airplay built-in, or even a third party speaker like the great iHome iW1– which I just picked up stack of four at Marshalls for $29 on clearance each. Apple allows you to broadcast to multiple airplay devices from iTunes, but I find that Airfoil is much more reliable and the speakers tend to stay connected longer, therefore making it actually usable in a larger home. Add to that what other commenters have said, since you can use any audio source on your mac, you can use Spotify, Pandora, you name it.

A few years ago I was really pumped when a third party developer made an iPhone app called Reemote to control airfoil using a companion app on the mac called Airfoil Server. Then Rogue Amoeba bought him out and lumped the app into airfoil with a new app called AF Remote. It always took a few seconds to get synced up and could have been more elegant. They just announced Airfoil Satellite for iOS devices which replaces their existing Airfoil Speakers Touch app, which at first glance looked like a weak update. The huge news with Airfoil 5 that they hinted at with the release of Satellite in their blog post a few weeks ago was that not only can Satellite receive audio from the mac, but it also replaces AF Remote in a way more elegant app. I've been using it all morning and can report it's rock solid stable in this first release, and is super easy to use. I've been broadcasting to 23 speakers in my house with not one hiccup, which in Airfoil 4 was common every half hour or so.

The only problems I've encountered so far are minor. First is that the size of the speaker selector window on the mac is fixed, I can't resize it and the green maximize button is greyed out at the top. Second, on Airfoil Satellite, the incorrect song ID tag is listed. Neither are major issues, the fact that Airfoil 5 seems so much more stable than Airfoil 4 is reward enough for the wait. I assume these will be fixed by the next few updates, which Rogue Amoeba pushes to their software automatically pending user permission.

The icing on the cake here is all the new features, support for streaming to bluetooth speakers at the same time as the Airplay ones, speaker grouping, the silence monitor which will help me with power consumption, and a fine tuning adjustment for sync when Airfoil can't sync it perfect (which is super rare for me anyway). The only thing left is for me to figure out how to get this plugged into my iRule setup, and possibly even get an intercom setup going with it. This is network addressable audio done right, and is the first consumer grade product out there with the capability and robustness of a system that costs tens to hundreds of times more. It's a major deal.

 

[mbdownunder]

I've been broadcasting to 23 speakers in my house

Wow, 23 speakers?! Do you have a huge house or just lots of speakers in every room?

 

[RC Mike]

Wow, 23 speakers?! Do you have a huge house or just lots of speakers in every room?

Between the intercom system and two 5.1 systems I've got 26, plus a couple of stereo systems. If I counted everything I have tied into Airplay, it could be about 40 at rare times. I've got a larger than average house, but nothing unusual. Speakers add up quickly. Really good speakers, however, aren't so plentiful. I've only got a handful of really good ones.

 

[beanbaguk]

($15- upgrade)

And your point is? How do you expect companies like this to remain in business?
[doublepost=1456012243][/doublepost]

I just don't get the fascination with Bluetooth audio. Don't people care about audio quality any more? AirPlay FTW.

AptX bluetooth is on par if not better than AirPlay audio.

 

[RC Mike]

And your point is? How do you expect companies like this to remain in business?

It sure looks like he just mentioned the upgrade price, which wasn't stated in the press release.

If RA wants to stay in business, I hope they improve their customer service and software quality. They used to be tops. Not sure why they fell apart.

 

[teamthompson]

Will each bluetooth speaker require it be associated to an iOS device? I am going to give this a try and have 5 mini jawbone jambox speakers, guessing I need 5 iOS devices for AirFoil to stream to?