Many of you must be knowing about Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba. To many, the ability to send and receive audio to and from different sources is a godsend. We’ll have a look at Airfoil in detail at some later stage (perhaps Phil could cover it in his Media Center setup series), but for now, let’s take a look at a brand new application “Airfoil Speakers Touch”.
I remember Paul Kafasis talking about a touch version of Airfoil on a podcast back in October. Was pleased to see an email in my inbox announcing just that. So what does it do? Simply put, it allows you to listen to pretty much any audio application/source from your Mac (or PC), on your iPhone or iPod Touch, just as long as they are on the same wifi network.
Airfoil Speakers Touch
I’ve been playing around with it for some time now, and it has performed splendidly. First of all, setting both up is the easiest thing you could do. Just download an install the Airfoil application on your Mac or PC, and then download the Airfoil Touch application on your iPhone.
On the Mac, launch the application, select your audio source (e.g., iTunes), and select the device you want to stream to (in this case, the iPhone). You can check mark whichever devices you need to stream audio to, select the output volume, as well as use the equalizer to control the output.
On the iPhone end, all you have to do is launch the app. Audio streamed across from iTunes to my iPhone without a hitch. There aren’t many settings available on the iPhone app. You can disable the fancy level meters, or set a password on it. Besides that it’s basically just a node controlled by the Mac (or PC). I like the fact that it recognizes which computer you have, as well as put a screenshot of your desktop on it so you can easily recognize the source.
The possibilities of this (as well as the entire Airfoil ecosystem) are endless! Now you don’t have to sync your iPhone over just to transfer that one song. Or you could use your iPod Touch to wirelessly stream over music using the dock connector. You could play a movie on your MacBook and listen to the audio while sitting comfortably across with your iPhone (with earbuds plugged in of course). Note that it’s not limited to streaming to just one device. So if you and your iPhone using buddies want to catch up on a movie, but don’t want to disturb the neighbours, Airfoil touch will come in handy! I can only imagine the possibilities when the iPhone 3.0 OS debuts, allowing apps iPod access to music onboard.
Airfoil Speakers Touch is a great app, and free too! A must have especially if you already have an Airfoil license. At $25 a pop, it is decent for the functionality it offers (look out for a full review of the Airfoil ecosystem).
