Steven Perich

(Edit: So el Jobso goes and releases iTunes 8 on me today. Oh well!)

Forget Remote Buddy - this is WAY cooler! After having a good little play with the native iPhone remote control that lets you control iTunes on a Mac/PC over a wifi connection from your Jesus Phone, I got a bit teared up remembering the days I had my TV and stereo connected to a Mac Mini.  I’m a bit of an audiophile so have a half decent stereo - and after I replaced my Mac mini with a PS3 (hey, GTA4 is cool) I missed being able to EASILY control music (streaming through the PS3 is NOT fun) and have it come through some decent speakers (iMac speakers are not decent speakers).

Enter an 802.11n Airport Express and the problem goes away.  I set up the Airport, hooked its audio out up to a spare optical input on the Denon AVR, selected the Airtunes speakers in iTunes on the iMac, and started up the iPhone remote. Seconds later I was listening to lossless audio through my preferred speakers, sitting on the couch selecting my preferred music with the TV off and iPhone in hand!  So fun

Even better I can once again stream my DTS encoded audio back to the stereo. The Mac mini (with iTunes) did it (when it felt like it) and the PS3 does something funky to the bitstream to stop the AVR deciphering it.

All in all…a fantastic, affordable solution that works reliably and took less time to set up than it did to write this blog entry!  I’m impressed, Apple… (If only you could fix up the iPhone firmware to work this well)