Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Streaming from home computer to iPhone?

R

rizajj

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 17, 2008
87
0
Any app that is forthcoming that will allow this? even if it's just on the LAN? Though streaming your home iTunes library from anywhere would be awesome.

I know ORB works, but that's only for Windows, and it uses Safari, not a dedicated app. Anything similar for OS X? Of course, a dedicated app would ulitamtely be the way to go.
 
rizajj said:
Any app that is forthcoming that will allow this? even if it's just on the LAN? Though streaming your home iTunes library from anywhere would be awesome.

I know ORB works, but that's only for Windows, and it uses Safari, not a dedicated app. Anything similar for OS X? Of course, a dedicated app would ulitamtely be the way to go.
Click to expand...

The official iTunes Remote app will let you stream your iTunes library over your own network.
 
italiano40 said:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/
this is what i use
Click to expand...

That looks cool, but I am unsure of how you stream to your iphone? Is there a safari address you go to? I didn't see an app for the iPhone, just apps for OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Also, does it work outside your LAN?

And yeah, Remote doesn't stream, just controls your machine (and only on the LAN, not over a WAN connection). But I suppose you could create a VPN back to yourself. Anyway that's irrelevant since Remote doesn't stream.
 
I'm with you guys...!

What i'm more interested in is video... anything that will stream video from itunes to the iphone i would pay a small fortune for! I've even looked into the SDK API's to see if there is any possibility to do one myself and upload to app store but i can't even see how it could be done even with the API's apple gives you! I suspect this might be an apple-only app... Remote would be the perfect app to do this as it (very frustratingly) will show you all your content, you can even play, forward etc, but it WILL NOT output to iphone... maddeningly frustrating! Why oh why didn't they build this in, surely it couldn't have been hard? Did they think they would sell less Apple TV's or something stupid like that...?
 
Bevz said:
Remote would be the perfect app to do this as it (very frustratingly) will show you all your content, you can even play, forward etc, but it WILL NOT output to iphone... maddeningly frustrating! Why oh why didn't they build this in, surely it couldn't have been hard? Did they think they would sell less Apple TV's or something stupid like that...?
Click to expand...
Remote was intended for the purpose it has, to be a WiFi remote for iTunes (AirTunes) or an AppleTV (which is already very cool). It's NOT supposed to let you stream content TO an iPhone or iPod Touch.

While it would be a very nice touch for Apple to include said functionality, I certainly don't see it as "maddeningly frustrating" since Remote does what it claims to do (and very well).

To the OP:
There used to be solution that would stream through Safari via Web Sharing but the post has since been removed. However, there is an plugin called DOT.TUNES that does basically the same thing.

[Edit]Found original solution (ie. free) posted by someone else (thankfully).

Step 1
Open “Sharing” in System Preferences and enable “Personal Web Sharing” - this will turn on the built in web server installed with OS X. When enabled, it will display an address (your IP or computer network name) as the URL for accessing the site on your network. Note this address - we’ll be visiting it on our iPhone via Safari later.

Step 2
The root of the web site is located in /Library/WebServer/Documents.
Open the Terminal and type the following:
cd /Library/WebServer/Documents/
and press ENTER.

Step 3
Still in the Terminal we will continue by creating a Symbolic link to your iTunes “Movies” directory and place this link in the root of your web server by typing the following:
ln -s /[path t0 your iTunes Movies folder] Movies
example: ln -s/Volumes/Machintosh HD/users/john/Music/iTunes/Movies Movies

Step 4
Open Safari on your iPhone and visit the address provided when you enabled the Personal Web Sharing in your iPhone followed by /Movies
Example: http://192.168.2.20/Movies/
Click to expand...

I don't have an iPhone yet (brother-in-law just bought the 3G and is giving me his old one ... yeah, he's great) so I can't test this method.
 
wow dotTunes looks like it's perfect. well, perfect would be an independent app,but i think this is totally useable. Guess I'll have to research it a bit more and probably lay out the $20 for it. Thanks.

I have found a great flash-based player for my FireFly media server, but of course, no support for the iPhone as there is no flash player. so close!
 
Wouldn't it be possible to avoid the DOT.TUNES solution altogether, just by web-sharing a folder of properly formatted videos via your mac or PCs built in webserver and allow directory browsing? Then you can just go to the server via Safari on the iPhone and click the links and play them.
 
TVVersity actually has a iPhone interface to watch/listen to media from your PC. I think TVVersity only works on windows machines though.
 
QuarterSwede said:
Remote was intended for the purpose it has, to be a WiFi remote for iTunes (AirTunes) or an AppleTV (which is already very cool). It's NOT supposed to let you stream content TO an iPhone or iPod Touch.

While it would be a very nice touch for Apple to include said functionality, I certainly don't see it as "maddeningly frustrating" since Remote does what it claims to do (and very well).

To the OP:
There used to be solution that would stream through Safari via Web Sharing but the post has since been removed. However, there is an plugin called DOT.TUNES that does basically the same thing.

[Edit]Found original solution (ie. free) posted by someone else (thankfully).



I don't have an iPhone yet (brother-in-law just bought the 3G and is giving me his old one ... yeah, he's great) so I can't test this method.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this method; i've definitely give this a go.... Be a good intermediate workaround until a proper iphone app arrives to do the job.
When i said "maddeningly frustrating" i did not mean it to sound like i was somehow critical of remote; i love the app; i have an appletv and it's fantastic to have such an app on my iphone.... very useful. I just meant my comments in the sense that it's "so close, but yet to far" to the streaming app that i also wanted.... i can see my content but could not stream it... All i want is an app that looks and works in exactly the same way as remote, but streams instead... :D
 
i cant get that method to work. I've turned Symbolic Links on in apache but still no dice. Probably 3 more .conf files I have to dig through to get it to work. If anyone gets this to work let us know how!

until then, I'll have to check up on DotTunes
 
sweet! Thanks for the info.

Also, I just tried DotTunes. It's free (it's the plugins that cost money). It works well over WiFi on the iPhone (videos too!), but is a little slow over 3G. Music works, but not video (reasonably at least).

Anyway for a free download, it's worth playing around with.
 
rizajj said:
Any app that is forthcoming that will allow this? even if it's just on the LAN? Though streaming your home iTunes library from anywhere would be awesome.

I know ORB works, but that's only for Windows, and it uses Safari, not a dedicated app. Anything similar for OS X? Of course, a dedicated app would ulitamtely be the way to go.
Click to expand...

Did you try telekinesis aka iPhoneRemote. Works with video too.

http://code.google.com/p/telekinesis/
 
Telekensis is awesome! thanks for the info. just tried it over 3G and it was decent. better than dotTunes. havent tried video yet..

However, it still is just a 'file browser'. Still, better than nothing. It's so funny how close all these things come, but not quite.

TeleKensis + Remote App interface=PERFECT.
 
rizajj said:
Telekensis is awesome! thanks for the info. just tried it over 3G and it was decent. better than dotTunes. havent tried video yet..

However, it still is just a 'file browser'. Still, better than nothing. It's so funny how close all these things come, but not quite.

TeleKensis + Remote App interface=PERFECT.
Click to expand...

Your welcome. :cool:

I use it mostly for video. With the iPhone component cables, it turns your iPhone into a poor man's portable AppleTV.
 
Ok I have now tried all of the above
I can easily say RemoteBuddy is the perfect fit.
Really well done, I will buy this one. Got it to work through the WAN nicely

Still looking forward to Simplify's app, but this is definitely what I was looking for. Thanks, I highly recommend everyone who is interested to try this out
 
apple will never allow such an app in the app store. think about it, they want you to pay for content from iTunes, if you start streaming stuff from your pc they loose sales. never going to happen in the app store.
 
eplchamps0304 said:
apple will never allow such an app in the app store. think about it, they want you to pay for content from iTunes, if you start streaming stuff from your pc they loose sales. never going to happen in the app store.
Click to expand...

Am I missing something? If you have the music in your iTunes library but not on your phone at that moment wouldn't you just wait until you get back to your computer to sync the music you wanted? Would you buy a song or album that you already own? I don't see how Apple would be losing money with an app like this...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back