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'Airfoil Speakers Touch' Now Available in App Store

Friday April 17, 2009 3:22 pm PDT by Eric Slivka
Rogue Amoeba is well-known in the Mac community for Airfoil, the $25 Mac and PC application that allows any audio to be streamed from a host computer to an AirPort Express or Apple TV. The original concept was expanded by the addition of free Airfoil Speakers applications for Mac, Windows, and Linux, allowing other computers to be recipients of audio streamed from the primary computer.

Rogue Amoeba has taken things one step further with the release of Airfoil Speakers Touch [App Store, Free], which allows audio to be streamed from a host computer directly to an iPhone or iPod touch. While Airfoil Speakers Touch is a free application, it does still of course require the full version of Airfoil running on the host computer in order to function.

With Airfoil Speakers Touch, you can send any audio from your Mac or PC, straight to your iPhone or iPod Touch! Just connect your device to your local Wifi network, then open up Airfoil on your Mac or Windows machine, and start transmitting. You'll be able to send audio from iTunes, RealPlayer, and even web-based sources like Pandora and Last.fm. Now, if your Mac or Windows machine can play it, you can hear it on your iPhone or iPod Touch!

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michael.lauden
Posted: 37 months ago
it'd probably be cooler the other way around - iPhone/iPod transmitting via airfoil to the router.
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ziggyonice
Posted: 37 months ago
There are so many uses for this, it's unimaginable. I've been waiting for this day since the App Store opened.
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michael.lauden
Posted: 37 months ago

There are so many uses for this, it's unimaginable. I've been waiting for this day since the App Store opened.


really? like what? besides listening to a movie quietly in the living room while your spouse is sleeping - i can't think of another use... there are pandora apps and such...
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todd2000
Posted: 37 months ago
Well I'll be using it to listen to Sirius on my iPod Touch until they get off their butt and release an official app.
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fabian9
Posted: 37 months ago
Doesn't work for me
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tmornini
Posted: 37 months ago

it'd probably be cooler the other way around - iPhone/iPod transmitting via airfoil to the router.


Agreed!

It blows my mind that the iPhone and iPod Touch cannot pipe sound to an Airport Express...
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BrianMojo
Posted: 37 months ago

Agreed!

It blows my mind that the iPhone and iPod Touch cannot pipe sound to an Airport Express...


3rded!
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libertyforall
Posted: 37 months ago
Agreed again!


Agreed!

It blows my mind that the iPhone and iPod Touch cannot pipe sound to an Airport Express...

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lukecro
Posted: 37 months ago
This is awesome. It basically turns our iPod Touch or iPhone into an airport express -- at least, as far as audio-streaming goes.

Now I can plug my Touch into my living room stereo system and pipe in music from the iMac in my office (which has 20,000+ songs, instead of the paltry selection of 4 GBs my Touch has). Great for parties -- keep the computer away from the drinks, but the music piping into the room.

I actually bought my Airport Express specifically for this type of thing. And I was thinking about buying a second one, so I didn't have to keep moving the Express around the house depending on where I wanted to stream music too. So the Airfoil iPhone App is going to save me some $$.

It also allows you, theoretically, to turn any set of headphones into a semi-wireless system -- something that even an Airport Express can't help with. e.g., I could plug headphones into my iPod Touch, and then walk around the house or lie in bed or whatever -- while listening to audio streaming from my iMac, which could include streaming radio, live TV shows via Eye TV, movies playing in VLC, etc . . . A great solution for when you don't want to disturb other people in the house. And, really, if you've looked at wireless headset solutions -- whether they broadcast from your computer over wifi, radio frequencies, or blue tooth -- they tend to be clunky affairs. This Airfoil-to-iPhone audio solution is much more elegant.

One problem I'm anticipating: Since we can't run background apps on non-jailbroken iPhones/Touches, then I'm guessing that this means we won't be able to run the Airfoil Speakers app at the same time as the iTunes Remote app or the VLC Remote app. This is a real shame, since having full Remote control capabilities would make Airfoil Speakers much more convenient for multi-room audio-streaming usage.

Anyway, I haven't actually tried it out yet. Will be interesting to see how well it works, and if Airfoil is able to keep the audio in sync with any video that might be playing on the computer -- it usually works great with the Draft-N Airport Express, but I wonder if my 1st generation Touch has enough enough power to handle it. The Touches and iPhones are all Draft-G, right? So that could create more lag time and glitches in the streaming?

Regardless -- well worth a try, since it's a free App and I already own a copy of Airfoil. :apple:
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macdim
Posted: 37 months ago

Anyway, I haven't actually tried it out yet. Will be interesting to see how well it works, and if Airfoil is able to keep the audio in sync with any video that might be playing on the computer -- it usually works great with the Draft-N Airport Express, but I wonder if my 1st generation Touch has enough enough power to handle it. The Touches and iPhones are all Draft-G, right? So that could create more lag time and glitches in the streaming?:


I'm not sure, but yesterday I was streaming a 720p mkv file from my MacBook to my PS3, including AC3 audio and I didn't get one stutter on wireless G. Audio should be fine. It really depends how much traffic the network is seeing at any given time.
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