Free iTunes remote control app for iPhone and Touch?
Is Apple borrowing a page from Sonos?
(Credit: CNET Networks)A report from the MacRumors blog shows supposedly leaked details of Apple's plans to allow the iPhone and iPod Touch to act as an in-home remote control for iTunes. As CNET's News.com reported this morning, the leaked remote control feature was discovered in a developer-only beta release of iTunes 7.7, evidenced in part by this unconfirmed screen shot.
If the rumors are accurate, the new iTunes remote control feature will be offered as a free application for iPhone and iPod Touch users once the iTunes App Store goes live. Presumably, a touch-screen remote control for iTunes could offer some of the same onscreen display and control functions as products like the Sonos music system or Logitech Squeezebox Duet. Unlike the music-subscription-friendly Sonos or Squeezebox systems, however, users of the iTunes remote control application would only have access to content from their iTunes library.
While users of iPhone-optimized Web applications such as iPeng have had similar iTunes remote control functionality for some time now, a one-step Apple-engineered solution would be less convoluted, and perhaps offer as-yet-revealed advantages. For instance, if the remote control feature already solves the problem of wirelessly linking your iPhone or iPod Touch into your home network, what's to stop Apple from finally offering the same type of wireless sync included on the Zune?
Anybody else see some cool potential with an iPhone/iPod in-home remote control?
Donald Bell is CNET Reviews' senior editor for MP3 players and portable audio, and one half of the MP3 Insider blog and weekly podcast. He also likes getting his hands dirty with digital audio tools for musicians and DJs.
Donald Bell is an electronic musician, a veteran record store employee, and a fearless hardware hacker. He's also CNET's Senior Editor for MP3 and digital audio.
Jasmine France is CNET's resident digital audio doyenne, writing and editing product reviews, crave blogs, and feature stories on all things MP3. And if you need advice on headphones, she's your girl.
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by joshalo3
June 29, 2008 10:57 PM PDT
- I think something cool to check out is this company (i found this a while ago so i can't remember the name) who turned the iPhone into a remote for the entire house. Everything could be controlled from the lighting to video surveillance. Everything has already been done and come up with, Apple just has to get the ball moving a lot quicker. Oh, and you could control your tv if it was connected to something such as a Slingbox which allowed incoming wireless commands. How cool would that be. It's all possible, they just gotta give it to us.
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