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Apple Rolls Out AirPort Express, AirTunes
das writes "Apple has introduced AirPort Express (specs), a palm-sized, portable 802.11g base station with 10/100 ethernet, USB printer sharing, and analog and optical audio output, for connection to a stereo system or powered speakers for streaming your music collection via 'AirTunes.' It supports multiple profiles for easy use at multiple locations It can plug directly into the wall as a "power brick", or use a longer power cord, similar to the newer PowerBook AC adapters. AirTunes requires iTunes 4.6, expected to be available soon."
Let's see... the airtunes:
- has no display or remote - need to go to the computer to change songs
- has no web interface
- only works with Apple's software
- no support for competing formats like FLAC, WMA
- no multi-room synchronization
- no open source, plugins or thrid party extensions
- no headphone output or proper audio connectors
I guess if you're REALLY on a budget then this is interesting, but Squeezebox is a much better audio product IMHO. It's really nice to be able to control the music from the room where you're listening, and the UI is frankly much better than iTunes anyway (especially if you have a LOT of music). Plus you can just run it on any machine you want without being tied to Apple's software and formats.Now I can listen to my MP3s on my stereo without having a 100 foot cable snaking around the room.
It's $70 cheaper than the SliMP3. It can replace a base station for many users. Less than the Wireless-G bridge that Linksys sells. Digital outputs for hooking up a stereo! I just ordered mine, hopefully I'll get one of the first ones shipped. I'll probably tell my Mom and brother to get one too-- it's just too damn cool!
How history repeats - the apple personal modem 1200 (other site) plugged into the wall also, and connected your computer to the outside world. Only this time, it's smaller, it's wireless, has audio out, and is 45,000 times faster.
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I think so.
tcd004
This looks like a great product, and kudos to Apple for letting it work with PCs.
Next step: having an iPod with WiFi that streams music/video to this baby! That would be super cool, and such a fun party trick. No more cables.
Just hope my neighbors get 'Airtunes' within a reasonable timeframe...they took forEVER to get a wireless router. Some people are so lazy...
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
It appears to me as though you can only share music to the Express from a machine that has the audio locally. But I'd want to control the music from a laptop in the living room, using music shared from my server in a closet, and then close the laptop. Seems like I can't do that, so it sounds like I won't be getting this.
this product is going to sell like crazy. 99% of consumers don't care about the fact that you have to use apple software, or that it is closed-source, or that it has no web interface. haven't you read the articles about wireless recently? most people don't even realize that there is a web-interface in their routers!
notice as well.. the thing has OPTICAL out capabilities. i see 5.1 surround coming from itunes soon.
I don't need it, I can't afford it...but it's just so cool. Sigh. Apple really got their foot in the door when I got this PowerBook.
Where is my credit card?
It is not clear from the information provided -- will it be able to stream to multiple locations at once? Will it be able to keep those locations in sync on the same source of music, as well as allow you to stream different playlists to different sources?
It looks like you can also use this in a wired fashion, where you connect this device to your wired network, and it will do the audio out as well. For me this would be more handy, because I already have ethernet wire to my stereo, but need a good way to get audio out of that... Is this actually how it will work?
One thing this is missing is a way to control iTunes remotely. I still think slimp3 is on the right track. A server with a web interface that lets you control what music you're playing where. I might want my PC in my office in charge of storing and dishing out the music, but have a webpad or something floating around my house to let people control what is playing where.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Nonsense. This is a $130 base station. It has every feature that home users use from the AirPort Extreme base station for a lot less money. The audio features are pure gravy.
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I think the way to think of this is that it's a Wireless-G router with no LAN-side ethernet ports, but instead has an audio-out connector. Bottom line -- maybe it's not a Squeezebox, but the fact that it costs less than routers with similar feature sets, AND will work really well for those of us who have already bought into the Mac platform, makes it a potential huge winner.
Now I have something else to look forward to when I get my PowerBook.
Now my question is is why do people slam Apple for creating products that only work with their products? No one slams Microsoft for creating software that only works with their products. Why is this?
This'll be badass with my shreddin air guitar!!
I also reply below your current threshold.
My friends often listen to music on their iBooks while sitting on the couch, they currently have a long speaker cable from the audio out to their stereo system. They will buy this in a second.
I'll be grabbing one as a wireless printer server and WiFi extender.
Did anyone else not see this product coming? It completely caught me by surprise/
-HJ
One of the great features of the Squeezebox (and the recently announced Sonos) is that you can sync multiple devices together and have the same audio playing around the house, regardless of location. There are other ways to do this, of course, but it'd be great to be able to do the same with the Airport Express.
It's tempting to make a little bet with you over how large the sales of this thing will be.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
AirTunes is the software driving this thing...but Apple's real device here is AirPort Express. It's a very portable base station, which can create a wireless network for connecting to a WAN through your cable/dsl modem...or extend the range of another base Apple base station.
So, yeah...compared to the full features of a Squeezebox for music, it's lacking. And compared to the price of a Linksys or other 802.11 router...a little more expensive.
I'll take wireless access to my stereo from my G5...which I already drive around via Bluetooth from my phone when I'm too lazy to move off the couch. Who needs a remote??
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
... there comes a point where all this convenience is deadly to fat guys like me. I'll just stick with putting a CD in my stereo, thanks. North America has so much convenience we're all dropping dead. I even have a remote control to turn on my Exercycle from the couch, so my wife thinks I'm excercising when I'm actually watching Smallville reruns.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Am I the only one that is missing audio specs from this? Simple things like signal to noise on the analog audio out would be nice same for things like how many channels I'm assuming a sterio pair but can it do 5.1 6.1 or 7.1 on the optical out? It seems ot only be able to repeat the wifi but claims bridging might this be the nearly perfect tv room accessory? I could see a sterio connection with a wired ethernet bridge for the console/tivo and a wifi repeater for better signal strength.
I cut my teeth on apple back whe a Mac 128 was current. They seemed to have been moving father and farther from being tied to any specs in the last 10 years.
No sir I dont like it.
Six formats: AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple lossless and WAV.
dude, you're getting a squeezebox
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
What happened to the so called slashdot omelette today? There's been already 3 mac related stories!
It's an Apple Omlette.
Mmmmmmmm. Aaaaapples.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Get a grip. This is a wireless access point what also has the feature of airtunes. It is also small and convenient. I think its a little expensive when compared with the Linksys WRT-54G's street price, but it looks like a nice little device. A lot cheaper than the regular UFO airport base station. The airtunes feature is not what it could be, but as an add on to a base station I think its a nice feature.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
Read next time, will ya?
People that use iTunes and iPods have long requested a simple way to stream music to stereos no matter where they are.
Those tiny white earbuds become tiny white pains in the ass if used for any period of time, and I like to hear the phone ring while I'm working.
You can bet your tail this device is only the beginning and can probably offer hints to the next iPod revision: wireless and remote-control modes.
Apple finally has a respectful user-base and they'll do anything they can to keep it for as long as possible.
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
You can change songs remotely if you have a wireless laptop.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Really. Until now, the offerings on remote stereo hookups were fe and far between. I just set one of my clients up with one. It was cheap. It worked. But it sure can't act as a bridge. This is going to save a lot of people a lot of money. Previously, you had to buy another Airport Extreme for $100+ to create a bridge. Now, only $30 and you get the benefit sharing your printer and iTunes wherever the hell you want. Brillant! (To borrow the word fromthe new Guiness commercials)
Would be nice if I could play ANY audio over this device rather than just iTunes. Apple could accomplish this by allowing it's sound system to playback on the Airport Express device. I don't know how Windows could support it.
Look at it this way, you have an xbox/ps2 that you want to get online and have also been looking for an easy way to listen to your iTunes music on your stereo. For $129 you get a bridge that will allow you to get your console online and an audio out to pipe into your stereo.
I paid close to $100 for a POS NetGear bridge a while back and it's only a b not g device.
Sounds reasonable. I don't see myself getting one, but that doesn't mean I think it's a watse of money/time and Apple should be slapped for making it.
Laptop owners like myself, who can connect to a home stereo without difficulty, don't need it. We already own mobile jukeboxes. :-)
While nifty, unless I'm misreading the information at the site, this thing can not be used to make an ethernet printer wireless, only USB printers. Or can it? It has a WAN port but not a LAN port. That means no ethernet printer connection, right? Heck, if adding a LAN port would make it too big, I'd say toss the WAN port and switch it for LAN. I don't see using this thing as an access point, but would buy at least two if it had a LAN port (one for stereo, one for printer.)
--- What?
current supported codex
AIFF Apple Losseless ACC MP3 WAV
nope thats 5 there.
Likewise ACC has been found to be the best, with quite a number of studies by independant sources. Plus you could easily give iTunes Vorbis support if your using a mac.
Of course ripping your CD collection over to a codex no one uses was your fault, not Apples
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It's cool, I'll give it that. And if I wanted to be able to send music from my computer to the stereo using iTunes, then it'd be neater. But really, I want to be able to send music from my computer to my stereo while sitting in front of the stereo. My living room system is three rooms away. Why I'd want to sit in the computer room and play music in some other room is beyond me...
If the thing hooked to a TV and displayed a list of songs and then could select and play those songs, then I'd think it was more useful as an audio device in my stack of audio devices.
A wireless AP that plugs directly into the wall is quite cool in and of itself, however.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Now you are on the Trolley...
MP3 and VBR MP3 are 1 format. AAC is the second. WAV doesn't even count. Apple lossless I've never heard of, AIFF I don't use, and I've never heard of Audible.
Most people I know who do real mixing and amateur party DJ'ing use Exact Audio Copy and either FLAC, ogg, or MPC. Cause MP3 sucks. AAC is slightly better but there are too many competing versions, and ITunes can't handle all of them (iTunes was fine for me playing music IT ripped, but not AAC stuff that Nero made for me...) MPC sounds the best overall and has good compression, and FLAC is needed when compression is NOT an option.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
"Kinda important for those of us who shop there from time to time and don't want to re-encode those files"
Perhaps it would be nifty if there was a program that would take files that you bought, you would supply your key, and then it would strip the DRM from the file so you could use your iTMS purchased tunes fairly?
Then you wouldn't be locked into an apple-only solution. Does that make sense?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
just fine, thanks!
in fact, apples + pork rules. applewood smoked bacon, anyone?
Looks like their web server is running off of an AirPort Express!!
The think I really like about this is the travel bast station aspect. Great for hotels!
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
Would this work in the USB port on the Airport Express?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Since it hasn't been mentioned here yet, I would say that one of the 'sleeper' functionalities in the Airport Express is that it can act as a wireless repeater: if that is seamless, this could be a very handy little product indeed.
So, it's a base station, and you can stream music to it from your computer, and it can be used to extend an existing wireless network, and you can share a printer with it?
This does to many things without doing any of them well. My base station has a WAN port and a 4-port switch as well as wireless. If you want to plug any LAN machines into this, you can't. You'd need a switch/hub upstream, I guess, as well as a firewall. It makes a good base station only for those who only have wireless connections.
Of course, you'd probably have trouble plugging this into your LAN anyway, since you'll want it next to your stereo in order to stream music to it...and I guess you'd put your printer next to your stereo in the living room as well?
I actually think it's a cool idea to have an inexpensive, wireless device for streaming music from iTunes, but this seems like a case of feature creep. "Hey, it's already got the wireless chips, why not make it work as a base station too? Yeah, and if we added ethernet and USB, you could use it as a base station! Cool!"
-podom
We're wanted men. I have the death sentence in 12 systems!
I don't use a Mac. A significant majority of iTunes users don't use a Mac. A significant majority of people who do amateur mixing and DJ'ing at parties and the like use FLAC and vorbis. And MPC equals AAC in audio quality, with less processing overhead. Plus the itunes software itself is rather...slow.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
Seriously, Apple folds innovations on top of other innovations they make. This is the next ipod, people, they are already approaching the home stereo which is now integral to the home theater as well. 802.11g has more than enough bandwidth to stream movies, right? Now, Apple has completely outflanked MS's "media center" methodology by saying "why for the love of god to you need a completely separate computer to run your home entertainment system?" what is a receiver except for a specialized computer, a computer that can be linked with other computers through a router. My prediction: a wireless OLED remote with a bare-bones OS X-style interface controlling (wirelessly) all the media in computers around the house. All this for around 300 bucks. Apple won't produce a PDA because that has no defined role, it's too nebulous and from that comes confusion. BUT Apple has all the experience needed for a kick-ass remote that just HAPPENS to do email, surf the net, etc.Or, what if the ipod BECOMES the remote? Mark my words, this is coming within a year and it will be huge and considerably less-expensive than the microsoft solution. Plus, it will all integrate with the ipod, I'm betting. You know how OS X hooks up with bluetooth phones? Same idea. This is huge and it is huge because it will be cheap, seamless, and not smacking of convergence.
While I haven't seen a plugin for MPC on iTunes, I do use a plugin that works with iTunes to play Vorbis files, which appears to be quite popular here on Slashdot (I don't really see the difference, but hey, that's beside the point). It only works on the Mac, however.
Vorbis Quicktime/iTunes plugin
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Why would you want a headphone output for this? It would be much simpler to use the jack of the computer you're using to control the unit with! I hate to be negative, but it sounds like you were just piling on the complaints without thinking carefully enough.
I'm a bit confused asto the printer port it provides... sure it's nice and will be helpful later on if you decide to use something else to connect to your stereo, but who keeps their printer in the living room?
Apple: You are SOOOO close on this.
... whatever). I want to stream whatever would be coming out of my audio port. I want to sit on my couch, put in a DVD, and watch and hear a movie without wires everywhere.
However, I don't *want* to stream iTunes (AirTunes
Can *any* device do this without a TV? I found this DVD player, but it's not what I'm looking for, either.
I get the feeling Apple designed it as a wireless AP that can serve audio or share a USB printer, whichever the users want, rather than as a device for people who have a printer next to their stereo.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
I should think that I can but since this is an Apple product I'm not sure if only my Apple computer would work with it
And yes, I run all of those operating systems at home and have valid reasons for each.
Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
I have a D-Link wireless router here, I was thinking of lugging it back and forth everywhere I go, then I saw this beauty. I thought, "no, it will cost to much" then I saw the price, and I'll be ordering one ASAP. thanks again apple. I was wondering though, could this act as a repeater for my D-Link router? The d-link is in my (detached) garage, and only works in parts of the house, what if I plugged this into the house, could it repeat the D-Link's signal? Either way, I know I'm buying one. I wasn't even expecting this.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Does anyone know if this will interoperate properly with non-Apple base stations? I'd jump all over this if it would work as a repeater with my cheap-ass Netgear wireless router - the added connection to my stereo would be nice, but the two together in a package small enough to hide behind my audio rack is very, very nice. But only worthwhile if it'll function as a repeater, functionality the construction of my apartment requires.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Umm, Apple remote desktop? Or what about adding the files that are in a public (to your network) share?
Tibbon
tibbon.com
First of all I am a huge apple fanboy. Second I own a similar device from Linksys. Minus the print features. It is my observation that nobody has succeeded in creating a product that does what the market wants yet. I am only pointing out that compared to Apple's other products this one is not at all impressive. I expect apple in most cases to create the perfect product. Like the iPod, The Macintosh, OSX. My standards for apple prods are very high. I am dissapointed at this as it is not an impressive device.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Wow. That's all I can say. This has to be one of Apple's best products - kudos to Apple, you understand our needs completely! I'm even more excited because this will take wireless out of the hands of Wi-Fi start-ups (i.e. the ones that inexplicably charge people for Wi-Fi) and put it in the hands of people who benefit from wireless. Even better, this will give people motivation to buy that laptop, because now they can set up wireless base stations virtually anywhere. This may sound like hyperbole, but a product like this could have a similar effect as did the iPod. So then lies my only question: when is this product going to be available in Canada? Because if any Apple people are reading this, the customer base in Canada is hungry for stuff like this.
You have to have your internet wire and your stereo in the same place to use this thing, don't you? Most people have a stereo in a living room type place, but who has internet come into the house in your living room?
Not exactly.
It doesn't have:
a LAN port
a modem
an external antenna connector
and supports only 10 users instead of 50.
Still, I'm sure as hell getting one for my stereo!
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
Why can't it have a 56k modem built in? That would be a great little device to take with you on trips.. Land lines are generally available everywhere but wireless or LAN isn't. What might also work is if there was a way to plug a USB modem into the USB port (that's supposed to be for printer sharing) and have the unit use that modem..
.02.
Although it is nice that it can automagically act as a wireless bridge.
Just my
Geoffeg
Why would I want a hard drive and an interface? I have a big hard drive in my Power Mac, why should I duplicate all of my music on some MP3 network device and my Power Mac? Why would I want to manage music in 2 places? If I rip a new CD why would I want to add it to the MP3 device too?
This device is half the price of what you mention and it acts as a wireless access point as a side benefit of streaming music. This is perfect for most users. The remote could be an issue, but you can control this with any laptop with iTunes and play the music from a desktop in another room on the speakers in your room. You can also use any of the new bluetooth equipped phones to remote control iTunes. I use the Salling Clicker on my T616 to control iTunes all the time. Hopefully apple will make a remote device soon that uses 802.11b and has a small LCD, I'm sure they will before too long, and if they don't I'm sure a few other companies will.
-matt
http://thewonderllama.com
>10,000...I'll put $5 on it.
Err...Less than 10000. Whatever!
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
The optical out is great news, especially IF it works with the Mac OS X Apple DVD Player and 5.1 audio.
Combine that with an Apple Cinema HD display, and any ADC equiped PowerBook or PowerMac becomes a pretty cool Home Theater PC (HTPC).
Does anyone know if this does/or will work?
Ted
Regarding "open source, plugins or thrid [sic] party". iTunes can play any audio that can be played in QuickTime, and QuickTime supports plug-ins. There is an open-source Ogg Vorbis plug-in, for example.
Regarding "proper audio connectors". True that it only has a mini-jack for analog audio, but it also has a digital audio port, which is certainly "proper" and what you'll want to use if you want high fidelity.
Just for the record, you could also plug headphones into the mini-jack, though I find it somewhat unlikely that people would be interested in plugging there head directly into a power outlet, which is the impression you would get with this device.....
--- What?
This remote you speak of would sell me on the thing!
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Apple's had lots of problems recently with AirPort.
:)
An update a month or two ago completely hosed both the base station and client in terms of speed, signal strength, and reliability. The update was pulled, and a new version was posted a week later.
The new version still had problems. Frequently, users would completely lose signal for 30 seconds to 5 minutes. I specifically had this problem, and looking around the forums, there weren't many who didn't.
Last week, apple posted an update to the client-side driver which seems to have fixed the last of the problems. Even though it's now fixed, apple was really ierresponsible by not just reverting to the old version (they didn't even provide a method to remove the faulty drivers!). I'd expect way more from Apple.
Chances are they waited until all the outstanding bugs were worked out with the current airport stuff before releasing this little gizmo.
I may get one just for the audio features and to act as a bridge in my living room which is logistically impossible to wire.
At $129, it's a friggin' steal. The old AeBS was pretty pricey at $199, and the only things justifying that high price were the USB printserver (which, BTW, doesn't support all printers, especially those which have cardreaders which act as USB hubs), WDS, and the enterprise-grade administration tools. All home users would care about was the print server.
Now, at $129, it's directly in competition with the consumer gear from Linksys, Netgear, and Co. Firstly, apple users always expect to pay a bit on the top for apple-branded gear. The quality you get is usually worth the extra 20% or so -- I've had more Netgear/Linksys power supplies die on me..... Secondly, a decent 802.11g AP WILL cost you a good $80-$90. One with a USB print server will easily cost as much as or more than the Airport Express. An independent wireless USB print server also costs around $100. Only using it as a print server is cost-effective. Finally, the audio feature is unheard of on this kind of multifunction device. You can expect to pay at LEAST $130 for a device which streams audio over the network and does nothing else. Granted, it will usually have some sort of screen and remote, but for the price, it's really not an issue. Oh yeah... did I mention it's tiny? (and very similar to the Power/iBook chargers)
The only feature I would have liked to seen would have been a USB fileserver. Instead of plugging in a printer, plug in a USB Memory Key or Hard drive and serve files off of it. Guess you can't have everything
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
But does Apple rock the house or WHAT? Job's is taking is job so seriously, it hurts my brain to even start to think of what's next... And all ya'll complaining about the gui interface, read the orielly article on programming a wifi or bluetooth device to control your itunes through ??XML?? Here's a few links, please excuse me if the go off a bit, but, well, I am still learning to prog... But I know there are some geniuses out there in /. land, and ya'll are good qith the gui
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/11/22/
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/newsletter s/20021127.htmlitunes_perl.html
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/01/06/m acosxunwired.html
a few of these look promising....
If you have blue tooth on your pc and a blue tooth phone or other device you can control the songs via remote.
Evolution or ID?
see I dont know about this one cause I loaded iTunes onto a pretty dirt slow machine (a Compaq 5060) Running XP barely and it ran pretty good, the visuizer sucks but other than that it ran almost as fast as my iBook.... and this was on a 400 mhz AMD k-6 (I might be wrong on the speed but it was around 400, might have been 425)
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
The Apple product has to be WIRED into the network, so effectively it is JUST like a wired squeezebox. The only item the apple unit offers that the squeezebox doesn't is that it's also a wireless g AP... big woopty doo, I can buy one of those from SMC for $50.
I'll give the Apple unit props for being a portable AP since that's kind of cool. I think the addition of profiles is interesting, though I highly doubt most users will have places they frequent regularly (enough to make up a profile) to use them.
The problem is the selling of this thing as a music item. First off it doesn't offer ANY interface, meaning you STILL need a PC to change songs or play things on the stereo where you have set-up the remote unit. How often do you want to change the songs in teh living room from your upstairs office?!? Pfft, utter waste of time. Then there's the fact it doesn't even deliver real audio outs, etc.
In contract the squeezebox IS the only device you need with your stereo; its a digital receiver that streams the music from the server or source via software. You can change songs and scroll through your library FROM the squeezebox, meaning you don't have to go back to your office, pick a song, and then tell the thing to play it in the living room.
Basically if you want a small 802.11g AP to go on the road with you great. If you want a digital music receiver the Apple unit is a waste of time.
-rt
If you have a wireless network, why can't you set up iTunes to access the music which is located on a remote server? The Express is simply an audio connection, but this most certainly means that future iPods will be wireless. I have to say that this is a really good decision.
Walk into space with wireless iPod, share music over iTunes through perhaps a random list of songs from everybody's iPod. Apple will likely update iTunes to support an ID of some form so you can see who was playing that lame ass song...
yeah, mpg123 and winamp really do have a better gui then iTunes...
or are you saying that there are no good music player UIs out there at all?
"I want to stream whatever would be coming out of my audio port."
FM RF modulator
"I want to sit on my couch, put in a DVD, and watch and hear a movie without wires everywhere."
TV RF modulator
There is also a Ogg Vorbis plug-in support for Windows.
I believe that there is remote capabilites but not in the black soft touch way. iTunes has Rendevous. Say I have a G4 tower upstairs or a PC tower in the home office and I open my laptop in the living room. I access my iTunes on the desktop via Rendevous and tell the laptop to play the song on the stereo in the living room.
Still a lock-in via software but the remote software is sort of there.
Apple touts their password protection and "other" security protocol. Hope this doesn't dampen your listening.
Let's see...
With a Bluetooth enabled Mac, there's:
Salling Clicker:
http://homepage.mac.com/jonassalling/Shareware/Cl
Romeo:
http://www.irowan.com/romeo/
And of course there are the standard media remotes, e.g. Keyspan Media Remote:
http://www.keyspan.com/products/usb/remote/
Heck, pretty much any PowerPoint remote control could probably be used for remote iTunes control, within reason. But the Bluetooth remotes are sweet.
-Geoff
WOO HOO! This is freaking sweet! I saw this on Slashdot and checked out Apple's site. I'm buying this as soon as I can! Looks like it doesn't even have to be plugged directly into the wall like it shows you, it actually has the normal Apple plugin feature like it's power adapter counterpart that will let you either plug into the wall directly or slide a cable in and the plugin part out. Also AirTunes looks awesome! I normally have an old Amp plugged in via an audio cable to my PowerBook, I guess I'll have to buy an adapter at radio shack to make it work. But this sounds awesome! I hate plugging my sterio in and out. And the option of taking this to my school's library, plugging it in, in the laptop carol and surfing anywhere sounds awesome! I will have to look and see how easily it can be made to behave more like a hub (last time I plugged a router in to our network the network guys got mad at me cause it screwed up the network) But I imagine it can be fiddled with. Or so I've been told. This sounds great! This is the sort of thing that makes me glad I'm a Mac user... granted it works for windows but... Oh and for you guys complaining about not having an interface or anything on it. It's on your screen. most people who use this will have iBooks or PowerBooks, you run iTunes in the room you're in. What this does mean however is you can have your PowerBook on the couch, with you and friends, and your stereo across the room. Or simply you don't have to plug in and out, in and out, in and out.
"Its target market? Gays in sandals who use iMovie to make DVDs of their trip to Starbucks in their Volvo station wagons?
I don't think a product can succeed with such a small target market."
Don't be silly. This is such a cliche at this point, its not worth even repeating or commenting on.
However, it should be pointed out that Sandals are not all that popular, so that part of yoru story isn't very true.
I think it's great... Very easy and straightforward management of my music library, which changes content at all times but always takes up about 120 gigs. I can manage all of it easily, find what I'm looking for, and making and managing CD playlists is easy.
I'm curious, what do you think the market wants? Hey, if you've got a good idea, get in touch with some OEMs and put it together yourself :)
The Express will only support 10 users instead of 50, only wireless LAN connections (no LAN ethernet connection), and no external antenna (your mod may vary).
Last time I checked, there were not more than 10 wireless devices in my home needing Internet access, and more people are using cablemodem/DSL for Internet access, so this rocks.
Not to mention the USB port for printer sharing. That's nice.
But there is no remote or display for the AirTunes, so I can't control things without going to the computer. I can use Bluetooth (my Belkin adapter has a 100 ft. range) and my Palm Tungsten T... hmmm. But I still don't get a playlist display. Can't change the playlist that's currently on, either.
I could buy a Keyspan remote... but a 40 ft. range and RF is not the best way to go, IMHO.
Why do I see a small" iTablet" in Apple's future? About the size of a Palm, stylus or touch controlled, with the ability to pick up shared iPhoto libraries and to control AirTunes wirelessly? Maybe even include some of the Newton's handwriting recognition since Mac OS X has the Inkwell technology in place...
I think AirTunes is a Apple putting their toe in the water to see what feedback they get. The PDA/tablet rumors may actually be tied more to the digital hub than to actual portable computing...
Directly from the Apple page... Secure Connection Rest easy -- AirPort Express takes strong measures to prevent unauthorized intrusion into your wireless network. It features a built-in firewall to protect you from gate-crashers from the Internet. It also features password protection and supports powerful encryption technologies including Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and 128-bit WEP encryption.
Imagine having a WiFi enabled iPod and being able to take this set up with you. Or you could have one at home, at the office etc.
100 foot (30 m) range. Works with your current stereo and any portable radio. Half the price. For example Canakit's UK333
-- "At Microsoft, quality is job 1.1" -- PC Magazine, Nov. 1994
I'm saying that all of these devices have failed ot meet mainstream acceptance
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Keep It Simple Stupid...
The target audience for this product is a Mac user... people are typically drawn to Mac for it's "it just works" image (which has been dilluted lately).
This seems like a very Mac way to get these functions done... via your existing familiar itunes interface you can play songs on your home stereo w/o a wire from your PC to the stereo.
It also eliminates a router for people who don't use wired devices.
With this less-then-a-typical-brick sized device you can put your cable modem and printer in/on a desk, and hook up your stereo too. Then your Mac's around the house can print, share files, connect to the net and play music on the stereo...
Apple definiately did their homework for this one...
Ah, now just imagine if I could have a wireless iPod to connect to this. Yes I do have an iTrip already, but basically you could use the iPod as your portable remote/iTunes player and not have to worry about finding the best FM frequency on the stereo.
I stand by what I said. All of the features that home users use.
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And I was getting so psyched last night because I got my Via EPIA board loaded up with Fedora and XMMS, and could finally stream my favorite streaming audio site, albeit with Ethernet cable (Wi-Fi was on my project plan), and pipe it through my office stereo.
And this little beauty will plug right into the wall socket by my stereo for a lot less money, less hassle, etc.
Anybody wanna buy an EPIA, slightly used?
(DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN......)
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
You want a Tivo, with the Home Media Option.
I have a Tivo, I don't want the Home Media Option.
-Otto, Former Moderator of the Tivo Underground, Tivo Community Forum.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Cool gadget...
I've been doing this in more kludgy ways with
wifi laptops hooked up to stereos. This just makes it very nice,easy, and convenient. Always a distinction for Apple stuff.
As for no display or remote, that's kinda moot.
Most people with wifi have a laptop in front of them and can see what's playing.
Imagine,if the next gen iPods are wifi, then it'll be just like having a remote and being able to see/change your songs without wandering into the computer room.
Anyone, see future video coming down the pipe
on one of these from your centralized movie collection on your mac/pc?
Maybe an iTheater app?
I've been looking for something like this, but for video. If this thing had video output as well, man, that'd be cool. I could watch all those DivX's that I ... ummm ... backed up from my DVDs .. yeah, that's it, on my TV!
:)
Here's hoping to Airport Express v.2.0!
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
I wonder why they didn't include HomePlug support, (ethernet over the power lines in your house). It's slow (I get about 3mbit between opposite sides of my house) but more than enough for media files.
Since this thing doubles as a wall wart and powerline ethernet requires a direct plug connection without a power strip, it should have been a no-brainer to include.
Peace
Good design and stuff.
If I can use that WAN port to connect it to my Cable router / switch, and hence the internet, it will be a nice, advanced, home AP. Audio support isn't much use unless I get another to have near the stereo though, although the bridge aspect is attractive.
I noticed one of the bigger differences is that it supports 10 clients and not 50 like the base stations. I wonder if there will be a way to hack away the limitation since I assume its a firmware limitation. Not that most home users will care. But some businesses might want to do it.
Winamp 5 loads in under 3-4 seconds on my athlon 1.5GHz / 256MB sdram. iTunes, with no playlists at all, took well over 15 seconds to load, and took up more resources than Winamp. Not acceptable :)
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
On what authority do you assert that there is no God?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Uh, never mind. Yes, "Local network", mentioned at the top, is LAN. :) However in the detailed specs, it only specifically mentions WAN. Confusing at the least.
--- What?
Actually that is a great question. When travelling 90% of hotels still do not have broadband - I wish there was an option for a Modem Port - like a mini Aiport - that would be it for me.
Are there ANY other wireless roouters with Modem Support like Airport? It remains the coolest and most defining feature of Apple Airport for me so far.
Bye
AM
i guess... in my mind who cares the load time when your counting it in seconds.... I realize on windows resources are a bigger deal.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Peace
I have music on two Macs and a PC, all running iTunes. I have my stereo hooked up to my tower Mac and then it shares all the other iTunes libraries. I control the tower using Chicken of the VNC from my iBook. Not sure how the Express will deal with shared iTunes libraries, but if your only problem is controlling the server (in the closet) with all your music, than try VNC. Works well for me, I even use it to control the WIN2K box.
It's not like you're supposed keep these in your pocket with a protective cover like an iPod...
Those who complain about affect & effect on
The one thing missing is the CoreAudio drivers for this baby... so that not only iTunes but any app can push out its sound to this baby. Check out http://cvs.opendarwin.org/index.cgi/projects/Netwo rkAudioDevice/ for a stepstone...
I'm sure it won't take long.
Joakim
My Homepod is way cooler than that, and has a display as well. Still, maybe we'll be able to do away with the Homepod's server software and use whats built into iTunes to work with AirTunes.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
I don't understand why people pay $600 for an iPod (499+extended warranty+tax) then use teh $10 ear buds that come with it. A simple $50 upgrade to even a half decent pair of headphones makes a world of difference. Plus, the ear buds are how the muggers here in NYC know you have an iPod.
Have you considered a Powerbook or iBook? I took the plunge three years ago and got a TiBook instead of a G4 tower. Now both my wife and I have one. It seems so very quaint to have to "go to the computer room" to check your email or look something up on the Internet.
Considering that Apple sells almost as many portables as towers, perhaps they see a Powerbook as the ultimate "remote control". I know that's how I see it, and I foresee an AirPort Express in my immediate future as an add-on to my existing AirPort WLAN.
HBH"Smart is sexy." -- D. Scully ("War of the Coprophages")
I wonder if this would work to get my PS2 online? I already have a wireless network in my house. I just need a means to get the PS2 to pick up the signal. Anythoughts?
Peace
I want it for a small repeater for my existing AP extreme. I can finnally get a sig to the one room in my house that remained out of range even w/ an ext antenna connected to the AP Extreme basestation.. (Just wish it had an ext ant connector rather than the audio connector)
While I have to admit that this is damn nifty, I've been in the market for something that does this with video as well. I have an EyeTV PVR, and El Gato makes EyeHome that appears to be much like this AirPort Express, but with all the missing features -- streams iTunes, streams video, allows surfing on the TV (with Safari bookmarks), etc. At about twice the price of the new AirPort Express, you're paying for the features, but it does seem a step ahead. Anyone have an EyeHome that can give some details on quality?
If this is a troll you moderators are bugbears
Another produce where they will refuse to replace the power unit under warranty. So if my home loses power, they will refuse to to replace the grid. Greedy bastards!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
We really need a version of itunes for linux. Or we should stop making the next killer skin for xmms and try to come up with a media player with all the features for itunes. I think that Rhythmbox and Juk are ok but are missing the killer features...
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/detour/
Rogue Amoeba's software audio tools might help some of the people who need certain tweaks to allow AirTunes to work as they want it to.
Personally, I am going to get one at the end of the summer, so I can divorce my stereo from my Mac (I have a receiver, speakers, and a computer connected via minijack) and have a real living room audio system.
Creative Labs is already shipping a similar product for streaming audio off your computer, but theirs has a wireless RF remote.a sp?catego ry=119&subcategory=121&product=9192#
http://us.creative.com/products/product.
Apple has the marketing power so their solution will probably sell better. Maybe when Apple let's you control the music via your iPod, it'll be as nice. Until then I'd take Creative Labs system, even if it's not perfect.
It looks like Apple is making another foray into the PC market. First they adopted USB, replacing the old ADB, automatically making PC USB peripherals Mac-compatible by default at the hardware level. Then they came out with the PC-compatible iPod. Then they produced the PC version of iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. Now this.
Peace
i believe the wright brothers were the first to trademark / copyright the word 'airport'. Apple will be hearing from my lawyers.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
I really see this as being a great product for sharing the audio on your laptop and playing it on a friend's stereo. But this device doesn't even come close to what a slimp3 or a Roku Soundbridge can do.
One thing missing from this device is a real optical out. I'm sorry but going analog mini jack -> digi optical doesn't make any sense.
... must be next, freeing internet audio from the desktop.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I can see it being very useful on a few small caviats. I can see it being very useful assuming it has a web interface or some way to configure it. (It could replace one of the dlinks I use to create a wireless bridge to my entertainment center but I need to be able to put in a single MAC to communicate with, set it to a static IP, and insert a 128bit WEP key.) Second, if the audio decoding is done on the thing, it would have to support MP3, OOG, AAC, and WMA at least. And I would want to be able to control my interface to it. (Specifically I'd like it as a Winamp 5 plugin and an xmms plugin.) I don't know how hackable it is though.
I do security
damn, there have been WAY to many stories about MAC OS X and Apple. I mean, honestly, isn't anyone else innovating besides Apple and Open Source?
ha.
peace, Snoobs
This means that Bose and Bang & Olufson now have Apple as a competitor, since clearly Apple is moving into the home-media-entertainment style arena. If you compare the stylishness and all other features of these companies, you'll find a lot of similarities.
Now, if they would undertake a joint venture to leverage Apples computing + iTunes + networking, woth Bones/B&O's Televisions, Sound systems, and so on, we'd have some fantastic interoperable home kit.
Many people are going on about how they want to remotely control an iTunes server to play into their AirTunes/AirPort Express. Some have proposed a VNC from a laptop to their server to change music selections, etc.
However, you are forgetting one thing (at least if your laptop has iTunes as well) , but your laptop already can see all of the playlists from the server if you turn on sharing on the server machine. Presumably, you can view your tunes and playlists on the laptop as they reside on the server and AirTunes them to the stereo. The only drawback to this setup is that your laptop has to stay on. I think this is a solution that a majority of users will opt for. This is especially attractive as your buff server is noisy and your laptop is quiet.
The SLIMP3 has a two line florescent display and an infrared remote control; the Airport Express has neither. With the Airport Express there's no way to see -- or control -- what music is playing without running from the living room (where the stereo is) back into the study (where the Mac with AirTunes is).
You could use the ATI Remote Wonder RF remote control in the living room to skip forward and backward in the playlists while flying blind, but that's hardly the same as scrolling through them on the SLIMP3's text display.
What's needed now is something that looks and works like an iPod, but is actually an RF remote control for AirTunes...
-Mark, who wants one anyway for travelling
I think it was a really nice trick how they made a stereo minijack and optical out in one port. This has never been done before, another notch in the belt for apple innovation!
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
watch out
The no LAN port thing is a pretty big deal. If people have a laptop and a desktop, they will be left with an air gap between their Airport Express device and their desktop. Not every desktop has wifi.
Many home users that don't want their desktop to use wifi, or have a dialup connection, will wind up spending $200 or $250 on a plain basestation and $130 on the Airport Express per stereo.
And for those users that *would* prefer only the cheaper device, they were going to buy an off-brand anyway. Apple wins again.
I don't see how this is anything but a win. I don't see how they cut into their own margins here.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Dear Apple,
Please stop making so many little, cool geek products. I'm running out of money.
Love, Norm
OK, why spend money on this when you can build an analog oscillator hooked to your computer and using frequency modulation to broadcast your computer's sound over AM radio waves??? I have done this so that way I can listen to my good music outside with a cheap radio. I don't know what AirTunes costs, but my method is very cheap. In fact, it's so awesome you can set it up to broadcast over any frequency! I bet the FCC wouldn't be happy about this, but my signal isn't very strong.
Apple's gotta lower the prices of the Airport Extreme base stations. Their own comparison shows that all the Extreme base station gives you over the Express is support 50 users over 10 and a LAN connection. Very few Apple users are going to need more than 50 users connected, and the LAN port is hardly enough of a reason to justify charging $70 more the AE base station. Or for $120 more than the Express, you can get a 56K modem thrown in. Apple's pricing doesn't always have to make sense, but this would be crazy even for them.
I've shopped around for a decent printer server that I can use with my 802.11b network. Of course, it doesn't surprise me the selection is small and far and few in decent prices. HP printer servers are expensive as hell, but work great. Netgears had bad reviews. Apple, I'm willing to try out.
Not only that, it has an audio out. I don't have to think of some elaborate setup with a dummy box I can shh into and play music. Plus, it's a wifi repeater.
For 130bucks, I think it's a steal. But, I'm a lil iffy. I'm a linux and windows user. I don't have a mac product in the house. Maybe it's better off I wait for the second generation.
Everyone's fixated on music, but the best thing for us road warriors is it's a mobile access point. I can bring it around and use the hotel's wired access wirelessly from my room. And it's tiny and light, so it won't load me down -or- take up a lot of space in the laptop bag.
If you've never been on the road, you don't know how much of a pain it is to be stuck to the crappy desks most hotels have. Go wireless!
You can also (with a y-cable) attach it to the in-room TV, so you can ditch those annoyingly-heavy travel speakers. Yahoo!
Need to enable wireless in a conference room really quick? Plug in one of these puppies, and bang, you're ready to go. You can even configure the drop in the conference room as not connected to the inside net, allowing instant ad-hoc outside access.
It's also something else: a security nightmare for IT. Imagine the problem IT had with unauthorized modems. Now you can have rogue access points the size of a pack of cards hiding out somewhere in your organization. You'd never find the freaking thing.
What a neato gadget!
Yeah, and AAC/MP3 -> digi optical does...? You're not going to be playing audio CDs in your powerbook if you care about this sort of thing, because after all, you've got a $1k CD player, right?
Yeesh, you audio weirdoes...
Please help metamoderate.
All of my Macs have WiFi. After all, I use an AirPort network. I am not sure I understand your logic. Early AirPort base stations only had one EtherNet port, and they sold well.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
Doesn't really matter to me... I already have a Squeezebox and a SliMP3 which together probably cost less than their system.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
I saw that too, but based on the fact that it's using WDS for wireless bridging, I'd tend to think it should work with the linksys WRT54G. Anyway we'll see in a few weeks.
Just for the record, you could also plug headphones into the mini-jack, though I find it somewhat unlikely that people would be interested in plugging there head directly into a power outlet, which is the impression you would get with this device.....
Funny. After reading some of this discussion (your comment excluded), I honestly couldn't think of a better idea right now.
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
In theory it has enough bandwidth but in practical, real world usage 11g doesn't work well for movie streaming. First the movies must be encoded down to a lower bit rate than straight DVD and even then unless you have adequate buffering you may run into hiccups. The real problem though is if you have 11b devices on your g network because that lowers bandwidth for your g devices somewhat.
However the next generation of wireless protocols will have enough raw bandwidth to stream raw DVDs and sound as well (in theory).
Interestingly people seem to be skipping over the fact that this device is a bridge. Many components in the Entertainment center are, or will be shortly, ethernet enabled. Apple has really covered their bases with this product as it has a lot of appeal to very different market segments. I
--- I do not moderate.
Thanks for the info - looks interesting.
i tunes_perl.html r s/20021127.html
Fixed URLs (the first two got fscked up):
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/11/22/
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/newslette
Reading the complaints from previous posts, I can see most people are probably thinking in terms of a desktop user. However, if you think with the mindset of a laptop user, this Airport Express opens up wonders (especially for iBook users).
First, the Airport Extreme gives laptop users a wireless path to the Internet (or an extended range if they already have a router).
Second, the last major tether to the desk can finally be removed off a laptop: the printer. With the Airport Express, a laptop user can finally roam freely on a WiFi network and not have to re-wire in order to print a document.
Third, especially for iBook users, a laptop user will not have to be restricted to their tiny built-in speakers in order to listen to music while moving around the house. The Airport Extreme will cut the wire from having an awesome external speaker connected to the laptop, and give users the ability to listen to their laptop music through those speakers wherever they go. And since a laptop user usually brings their laptops along, no remote is usually necessary (unless you're extremely lazy).
While the lack of remote support can be a pain to desktop users, the Airport Express, in my view, is a godsend to laptop users.
There is a hack that will allow you to convert anything going to your speakers to MP3. All you need is to stream that MP3 using some MP3->streaming music station and play that via itunes. Seems very hacky, but ought to work - depending on latency issues (if you also want to, for example, have it sync'd with DVD video).
If you read the specs page, it says that the airport express has no 'LAN port' and only a 'WAN port'. This leads me to believe that it will not act in the way that you are hoping, unless of course you have a wireless adapter for your xbox.
-JD-
You can buy remotes for your PC that will work for up to 70'...
ATI makes them, just plug them in your USB port and voila! you can change MP3s and do tons of other fun things!
Actually, this has been fairly common in MiniDisc players for a long time (better part of a decade?). All of the Sony MiniDisc players I've seen have had dual-format jacks. It auto-detects which kind of cable has been plugged in and goes from there.
DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
..and with a modded Xbox - conceivably stream video content as well?
To serve as a more functional portable wireless access point? I'd love to be able to throw one of these in the wall of a clients so I could get wireless access while I'm fixing computers.
Perhaps we'll see the combination of AirTunes software with Garage Band? The new AirGuitar software should really liven the party up.
You're not going to be playing audio CDs in your powerbook if you care about this sort of thing, because after all, you've got a $1k CD player, right?
Quality is sacrificed for portability, but with a home stereo unit there is a greater expectation of quality than something used on the road. Not for the mass market, but for people who play a lot of music. I'm so sick Apple apologists trying to justify the lack of features in a product. Just look at the thread from my original post. So far the replies are:
- Use a laptop for a remote!
- typical flame
- buy a 12in powerbook!
- an informative post about the jack
- just use playlists!
Of course every apple product is perfect. I'm sorry for bringing on the wrath of the apple fanboy apologist.There is no information about how to set this device up...what you do if you have an existing network and want to use this as part of it. Does it have a web configuration interface or something? Is it DHCP-only? I mean, I like ASUS' motherboards and video cards fine. I'm not an ASUS fangirl but suit yourself. It looks like an interesting device, but I don't know how I'd get it to play nice with my existing network.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Setup is pretty much as follows:
Both my Xbox (modded & running XBMC) and my studio box (older PM G4) access my fileserver via a Samba share. Both XBMC and iTunes are controlled via my handspring visor's (using a Xircom springboard modules) browser (XBMC has integrated webbrowsing, but I had to use DeadEnd's webRemote to control iTunes). Next, Both devices are mixed in through an old Fostex board and broadcast via a low powered stereo transmitter.
This not only allows me to play all of my Ogg, Mp3 and AAC files on any stereo (or walkman) on (and around ;-) ) my home/property, it also allows me to control the tunes as I choose.
It works quite well... but with a lot of obvious steps. (The biggest is using both the Xbox and the Mac... which I could overcome if I'd go ahead and strip my protected AAC's). Not sure if I'll go Apple's preferred route or not... but it is tempting.
#SickNotWeak
Sorry to burst you bobble. I don't know if it makes a difference if you call the ethernet port a LAN or a WAN port. I think you can make it work ether way. The thing that is going to stop you is that you cannot connect to any wireless network. Taken from the specs: AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express can extend the range only of an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express wireless network.
I have a laptop already. I don't like using it in the living room. I also have a webpad with touchscreen, same deal.
Frankly, I simply dislike computing devices as control systems. If I can't control it from my remote, I don't really want it as part of my media stack. Keyboards and touchscreens are poor interface devices for the home theater, IMO.
If you can show me a really nice fully integrated solution, then perhaps.. But I don't want to surf the web on the TV, and I don't have a need to check my e-mail from the couch. It's not "quaint", it's active dislike of taking the computing into the living room as the solutions I've seen thus far mostly suck.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Sending audio over 802.11 to an AirPort Express box just to get digital audio out of your Mac is total overkill. Try a USB audio dongle instead.
So does this mean I can't extend my NetGear 802.11g wireless router?
(This is mostly a theoretical question... I can already get wireless access a block away from my house with my PowerBook, as well as from anywhere inside of my house. :-)
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Bose and Bang & Olufsen? Is that like shit and sterling silver?
Seriously, those two companies couldn't more unrelated though I could see Apple being compared to the latter. Lots and lots of gloss but the performance is pretty disappointing.
>I don't want a printer by my stereo.
:p
thats why you buy two
Obviously, most of the people here at Slashdot are in no way close to being average users, but:
To me, this seems like the perfect living room accessory for the average home user. Most home users I know who are on a budget, have the family computer in the living room or very nearby. Most of those users have the primary phone and TV in that room so they could easily plug their cable or DSL Internet connection into this device.
At the same time, the stereo is right there so it encourages storing music on the home computer instead of CD's. Let's face it, most average budget-minded home users don't store their music collection on their computer because it's not easily accessible or playable. Most of those people won't spend the money to get a really good sound card that outputs digital audio, then take the time to install/troubleshoot it, then take the time to run the cable to the stereo. Just to replace the process of putting a CD into the stereo and hitting play? For the most part, only a true geek would do that.
Just buy this thing for $129, download iTunes for free, start storing your music in iTunes, then turn on "Party Shuffle", and let it stream constantly to your stereo. Sounds like a simple way to get the vast majority of the market that DOESN'T store their music in a computer already -- forget about all the audiophiles with steep requirements, just get the masses into your product(s) and the rest will follow.
I'm not necessarily budget-minded, especially when it comes to gadgets. So, for people like me who have a family room, an office/computer room, kid's rooms that are out of range of most access points, and maybe a back yard where we spend a lot of time, we'll buy several of these.
-- I'll be buying one for my family room so it can host Internet access and streaming audio for our primary stereo.
-- I'll buy another for my office/computer room as an Internet access repeater and as a host for our only printer, which will allow me to move it away from our family computer in the family room.
-- I'll buy another for the kid's room upstairs that's the farthest away from the family room for Internet access and possibly a printer later.
-- I may even buy one for my bedroom to plug my bedroom stereo into and to reinforce the weak wireless access I have there.
I think, like the iPod Mini, this product is just about right and just about good enough for the market(s) it's targetted...
Since it doesn't have a UI for playing the music on the stereo, you could use the printer to display the cover art and tracks now playing.
Share and Enjoy!
If you're referring to UDP checksum, UDP error checking only reports errors... it alone can't actually recover from them. Higher level protocols then provide retransmission, reassembly, flow control, collision avoidance, etc... but I concede to your point if these error recovery are in fact provided at some level of the OS (possibly within iTunes Streaming Music Server itself).
Now, all I need is a flat big enough to *need* wireless streaming to every room as opposed to 'turn the volume up on my iTunes-connected stereo and leave the doors open'...
(Hmm, I guess I've reached the age when practicality and fiscul prudence take precedence over having the latest cool 1337 hardware. How depressing!)
You must think in Russian.
Would it be possible to have a webcam connected to this thing? I mean, it has a USB port. Are there limitations to what devices it can host?
It could make it easier to check on the baby, to see if he/her is sleeping on his/her back or not. Or a 1000 other uses, for sure, where you wouldn't like to invest in a computer of it's own.
If you go from the Wired Mac -> Wireless Router -> Airport Express -> Stereo, as well as Cable Modem -> Wireless Router -> Airport Express -> Xbox, it's one heck of a device. And I don't see why you couldn't.)
I do.. how are you going to hook up the XBox to the Airport Express? I didn't think the XBox had 802.11b/g support.
This is simply wrong. Sony has had these ports in their MiniDisc players for years.
Yawn.
Source: Jason Snell's blog entry at MacWorld, which has more detail.
Wifi chipset? CPU? OS?
Is there any way to play RealAudio streams through iTunes? BBC's Radio1 is staple in my audio diet, and unfortunately they only stream in RealAudio.
I usually hook up my powerbook to my stereo when i'm home, start up real player and let it go, but if i could cut the cord i'd be super happy.
so, i'm looking for either a RealAudio streaming plugin for iTunes or a way to grab the audio stream from RealOne, route and route it through iTunes (via mp3 stream or whatever). basically, anything to get streaming real through iTunes without losing other audio functionality (system beeps, Fire sounds, etc..) in OS X would make me happy.
Wifi chipset? OS? CPU? etc..
And, what's really funny is if you were a real Apple fanboy, you'd know that all the Apple products you mentioned were far from perfect on their first revisions:
iPod -- bad battery life, hacked battery, crappy physical interface, no USB interface, etc.
Macintosh -- crippled by non-upgradable 128k memory, BLACK & WHITE screen (I had an Amiga at the time), internals are "no-touchy" for users, single-tasking OS, etc.
Mac OS X -- slow/bloated, incompatible, Objective C (!!) only, barely more than OpenStep on PowerPC, etc.
Do I own an iPod today? Hell yes! However, I did not buy the first or second revs, I bought the most recent one, and I do think it's perfect.
Do I own a Macintosh today? Damn right! I never bought a B&W Mac -- my first one was the IIvx from around 1994, then I have a beige PowerMac G3 tower, then an original iMac, then an original iBook, then an iMac 17", then a PowerBook G4 12". And, I have a PC laptop and a PC desktop, too, that I use Windows and Linux on, so I'm no Mac zealot or "fanboy".
Do I use Mac OS X today? Oh yeah! I used NeXTStep since 1993 which was like heaven, but I used Linux/Windows on PC's in the early years of Mac OS X because it sucked so bad. Today, Mac OS X is good enough to pull me back to the Mac from using Linux on my PC's.
The bottom line is that I don't remember a single Apple product that was anywhere near perfect in the first revision. I may hold off buying this device for that very reason, but at $129 it's hard to justify not buying one at least for testing...
This device sounds more like a repeater than a bridge to me. This device will extend range, not bridge a gap wirelessly and convert back to Ethernet. Poor choice of words on Apples part.
That's the first time I've heard Apple get dissed for selling something too inexpensively. You just can't please people. ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Oh superb. Only apple could come out with something with even shorter range than the already poor Airport basestations.
Regarding "open source, plugins or thrid [sic] party". iTunes can play any audio that can be played in QuickTime, and QuickTime supports plug-ins. There is an open-source Ogg Vorbis plug-in, for example.
It's a pretty safe bet that AirTunes uses the same method of sharing that iTunes has had for a while now, which means that the audio decoding happens on the client side. So, even if you can play Vorbis in iTunes, the AirPort Express will not be able to play it.
(A friend of mine proposes some kind of on-the-fly transcoding to Apple's Lossless format, but I doubt seriously that that's how Apple has implemented it.)
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
I agree, it's a good value for either function.
I can imagine using both at once, though, in my dorm at college. I also imagine that people living in small apartments would find it useful too.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's really easy to see a divide in the intelligence of the various readers of slashdot. There are few people who give it a fair shake down and most of the moderated up stories seem to be about a lack of Opensource and Remote. Thats fine and dandy. The apple users tend to admit "Sure not remote" but they then go on to point out the half dozen other features the thing has. So to sum it up, this is why it destroys the slimp3. I can take it, plug it in behind my tv and hook it up to my stereo. I can then remove the really long ethernet cable going from my hub to my X-Box and get a much smaller one and plug it right into the little Airport Express. I can then blow stuff up on my xbox and stream happy music to the stereo. At the same time. I'll be able to use my Powerbook in my kitchen, thanks to the wireless bridging capability of this wonderful device. Thats just freaking cool. Slimp3. I can play music to multiple rooms with a remote. Ohh i think it mentioned something about an alarm clock.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Just for the record, you could also plug headphones into the mini-jack, though I find it somewhat unlikely that people would be interested in plugging there head directly into a power outlet, which is the impression you would get with this device.....
Agreed, but since it uses the Apple "standard" portable power adapter form factor, you can swap out the wall plug for a cable. Just like an iBook, PowerBook, or iPod power brick.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
... is that if you try to order one you find that they are not shipping until July :-(
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Does this product make the Beatles' case against Apple Computer stronger?
Obviously, AirPort Express does more than stream your music from your computer to your stereo, but because of that it can be viewed as a 'music' device.
You can read about the case here (in case you haven't).
You can use AirPort Express as a wireless bridge to extend the range of your primary base station.
I already want and need two. Sold. Amazing.
Don't say anything negative about any apple product. Just drink the kool aid or be flamed!
notice as well.. the thing has OPTICAL out capabilities. i see 5.1 surround coming from itunes soon.
Imagine being able to buy some of that music the sell on audio DVD's from ITMS!! Now that is an insightful comment if ever there was one.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You won't need to go back to your computer if you have a mobile phone that can run Bemused or Salling Clicker!
I run the GREAT daapd project on my Gentoo system to stream out my music to all the machines at my home network and to work. I was recently thinking "how much power would it take to embed that project and take on the squeeze box?".
But, knowing how small the mach kernel is, could this all be run via real software? Airport is mainly run my hardware controlled by a tinny bit of firmware, but given this thing has more features than your average home router, do you think Apple has stripped down Darwin to create it?
Think about, the development for getting CUPS, mDNS, DHCPD, their DAAP, their firewall, the airport driver might out weigh the cost of a hardware with enough power to run an embedded system.
.\.\att Clare
If you already used Hymn, then those files will play under 4.6 - after all, how could it tell normal unprotected AAC's (like my ripping a CD) from the converted ones?
As for music purchased after you download 4.6, just wait a few days for the next version of Hymn.
I use Hymn at work so I can share between a few computers, but at home I don't bother unprotecting the music at all, as for practical use there really is no limitation you run into.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually many, many people would probably love a living room printer that they could just run a few prints from. A small USB photo printer would be perfect, along with iPhoto library sharing, for a visitor to select prints on a laptop and take away a few copies...
Who else think a printer in the living room is a great idea? How about Epson.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Scoured their site, and all Asus sells is a slow, power-adapter-requiring, non-audio-supporting 802.11b grey plastic thingie. I have never neard of an ASUS-fangirl, but suit yourself.
I don't know if anyone has said this already, but it is a nice WiFi repeater, a wireless print server, and a music streamer. A new Airport base is an extra $100. A WiFi print server from D-Link is over $100. A music streamer for iTunes doesn't exist. Its a good deal.
Actually, that's a bit misleading. You're the second person today I had to disabuse of this notion... so forgive me if this comes off a bit harsh.
First, look at the very top of the specs page for AirPort Express, and you'll notice a picture of the device with its ports clearly labeled with call-outs. Right next to the ethernet port, it says: "10/100Base-T Ethernet / Intelligent port for connecting to DSL or cable modems or a local network" (emphasis mine)
Yes, this slightly contradicts what's in the features table lower down on the page, but only if you're literal minded. The more expensive AirPort Extreme base stations include two ethernet ports, one designated WAN, the other designated LAN. The purpose of providing two ports is so that you can use an AirPort Extreme base station as a single firewall for both your wired and wireless networks.
The fact is, this device has a single ethernet port, just like the original AirPort base station (which only supported 802.11b, not 802.11g, and only supported 10Base-T and not 100Base-T). That table is therefore simply misleading; they had to list the single port on the AirPort Express device somewhere, so they called it a WAN port, but it can function either way, depending on configuration.
To further support my claims, I recommend that you read this article by Jason Snell. He got a lot of his information directly from Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of hardware product marketing, and he even edited the article once because of Joswiak's input. There are all kinds of nifty wired-wireless bridging capabilities for this device. But you only get a single ethernet port, so it's not quite as flexible as some of its bigger brethren when it comes to configuration. But yes, one of those possible configurations is connection to a wired LAN. One line in the article states: (Again, emphasis mine.) Which implies that the single ethernet port can (and does) serve both functions, but not at the same time obviously.
Incidentally, configuration of this base station is identical to the configuration of any other Apple base station, using the AirPort admin tools. That means you get the same set of options (and fairly advanced ones, at that) for configuration across the entire product line.
Personal aside: This is the second time I've seen someone claiming that the AirPort Express doesn't support LAN connectivity based on what they saw in the product comparison matrix. (The first time was on the MacCentral discussion boards.) What I want to know is, how could you miss the big pretty picture right at the very top of the page? I mean, am I the only person who looks at the picture with call-outs first, and then looks at the table with the specs? Maybe I'm just more visually oriented than most.
As for the audio decoding, I'm going to take a guess that iTunes is actually going to stream to the AE rather than uploading individual songs to it (there is network streaming built into iTunes already, so it would make sense). The point being that anything that iTunes can play, the AE should play too. So with the OOG plugin for iTunes you can play MP3, OOG and AAC. iTunes can automagically convert all your WMA's to AAC too. And face it, you don't want to be mucking around with WMA's do you?
The interface may be a little limiting - as above I'm guessing this will recieve an iTunes stream. It may therefore accept ANY Quicktime stream....or it may be tied to iTunes. It would be really nice if Apple released iTunes for Linux - in the meantime if you can beg/borrow/steal a Powerbook or iBook you might want to try YellowDogLinux with OSX. Sweet.
Really... I want my stereo to be a set of speakers for my Mac, all digital to boot. Yes, I could do this today with $100 of add-on PCI card and another $100 of fiber cable, but a little box and some Cat-5 would be soo much cheaper.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
So.. really nifty little device. The one glaring omission: a remote control.
The solution: I'm betting a WiFi module/adapter for the iPod. You can either stream music from the iPod to the AE, or you can use the iPod's controls and display to control (the possibly larger) library on your computer.
iPod -> WiFi -> Airport Express
or
iPod -> WiFi -> Computer w/ iTunes -> WiFi -> Airport Express
Since you'd be using it around the house/office/hotel, the lessened run time of the iPod from powering the WiFi adapter would not be an issue.
As an ancillary benefit, the iPod would also function as a remote control for iPhoto and Keynote.
iBook, iPod and Airport Express, your total wireless presentation system.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
As I mentioned here, If you get Salling Clicker and a Bluetooth-enabled phone or Palm PDA, you're SET. Salling Clicker is a very very cool program that turns your phone or PDA into a very full-featured remote for your Mac. Then you'll have a "one handed" remote with an LCD display that you CAN put in your pocket. Check it out.
www.clarke.ca
I've seen in the Apple tech specs page that the Airport Express base station has a 10 user limit, where as the Airport Extreme has a 50 user one. Where does those devices applies their user limitation? Allocable IP addresses via DHCP? Bandwith? Or is there anything else?
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
(A friend of mine proposes some kind of on-the-fly transcoding to Apple's Lossless format, but I doubt seriously that that's how Apple has implemented it.)
In fact, that's exactly how it works. It transcodes to Apple Lossless, which is compressed, and streams that. So in theory, anything you can play in iTunes, you can stream to the Airport eXXXpress.
And yes, I want one.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Luckily, since I had FreeBSD 5.2.1 (Release) running on the old Celeron HP Desktop, I was able to use the built in FireWire support, load the Apple File System Geometry kernel extension and compile a UFS/UFS+ file system mounting utilities on FreeBSD and get the previously underused FireWire drive shared over the network via SAMBA (as well as it's 2 internal 8GB Drives). All told, it took like 45 minutes to get it up and running.
Unfortunately, the HP is rather loud (the power supply fan) and annoying to have on. A EPIA based setup would be PERFECT to run FreeBSD and serve as a general file server.
Also, I suspect that whatever protocol Apple is using to stream audio over the network to the Airport Express will soon be dissected and reverse engineered (love those Slashdot Hardware hackers!!) and you'll soon be able to stream from your EPIA as well as use your Firewire drives as NAS. But if you want to ditch the EPIA setup right now, drop me an e-mail.
DaveC
There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
I'm a little concerned that the nature of this device will encourage people not to plug their base station (this device) into a surge protector
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Are you familiar with WDS? The Wireless Distribution System? It's a standard used by 802.11 to extend wireless networks.
All the possible problems you bring up are completely negated by following the WDS standard (which is implamented in at least the broadcom chipset).
You could use Salling Clicker to use your bluetooth enabled phone for one or more of the following situations:
Automatically tell iTunes to switch to sending the music to the Airport Express when you walk away from your computer (ie: when your signal drops). I currently use my t68i to lock my screen and pause iTunes when I walk away from my machine.
If you are close enough to your computer (ie, its in the room behind you) use your bluetooth phone as a remote. This depends on your range and computer placement. My phone is actually able to connect to my mac through the wall in the living room.
I'm not entirely sure about this because of my lack of experience with networks. I saw there was "no LAN" on it, but I also saw that it supports 10 users...
So, right now, I have a DSL modem, which is connected to my ISP using PPPoE, the DSL is split between my wireless capable computer and my girlfriend's wired computer using a router... Both are apples.
If I got this, which of the following would work:
1) take the ethernet cable from the router out of my computer and put it into this thing, work wirelessly.
2) Sell my router and buy my girlfriend a wireless card for her desktop, use both computer wirelessly.
Thank you in advance to anyone who asnwers sincerely,
-S
yo what if i put them all over my house in every socket
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
As noted previously in the thread, VNC is just a bad option. I am not sure if I empahsized this, but this needs to be usable by other people, which means 1. it can't be complicated 2. it can't be insecure (giving people easy remote access to my server!).
...).
...
However, netTunes is the best option I've seen so far, and it basically does a VNC just for iTunes. So it is what I am working with now. The one problem is that this won't make it any "nicer" to get AirPort Express, because I can use netTunes with my existing laptop in the closet. However, this will allow me to sell my second AirPort Extreme Base Station (probably for enough to cover the cost of the Express), and save power by leaving the MP3 player laptop off, and allow me to use that laptop for testing (like, I would like to have a Jaguar machine around
So, I may go ahead and do it.
**** ANOTHER UPDATE ****
I was just informed by a knowledgable source that you can stream DTS 5.1 audio CDs from iTunes to AirPort Express, if using the digital out of AirPort Express. I only have like four of them, but I like to listen to them, and it's a pain to pop them into the DVD player sometimes
another poster mentioned the Salling Clicker software, but it's cool enough to mention again.
I have this for my Palm Tungsten and Nokia 3650 phone, both bluetooth enabled. You can basically control most any application on your mac. ITunes is the most compelling example. Bring it up on your phone and it connects via Bluetooth to you Mac. From there you can start itunes, and navigate to the songs/playlists/browse-whatever (just like the iPod) and completely control iTunes. You can pause, fast forward, control the volume. The album art shows up for the currently playing song. It really is unbelievably cool. The only thing missing up to now was an actual use, for me at least. I can now control my stereo fully from my phone.
Oh, another cool thing: incoming calls cause it to pause. Same with DVDs.
Not bad for $20.
Audiolunchbox
Seriously, I don't get paid by them. They just rock. No DRM, mp3 or ogg. Buy a single file or the whole CD.
An lcd
A remote control
Anything from M-Audio! - MIDI interface, keyboard, a (real) audio interface...
microcontroller --> endless possibilities....
flash drive, or a flash card reader
usb drive enclosure - harddrive, CD-R...
TOSlink is "digital" (this word is usually written all caps and italics in the marketing), but in the consumer realm, with the cheap plastic-core cables and low-powered emitters, has hideous error rates, making it easily comparable in quality to a mini-jack carrying a -10 dBV unbalanced signal. Add this to fact you're probably listening to a lossy encoding of a song, and the TOSlink becomes a complete loss. Just because you have digital end-to-end doesn't mean your getting good value.
But you are right, a mini-to-TOSlink doesn't make much sense, technnically. It's for compatibility.
Let me ask about a particular situation, as it is somewhat marginally on-topic, given AirPort Express' purpose. I have all of my music on a 180 MB LaCie external hard drive, but my iBook is wireless. Is there a way that I can somehow get wireless access to the tunes on that hard drive, so that to listen to my music, I don't need to be tethered to the external hard drive? If I understand how AirPort Express works, it would not be appropriate for that purpose. Would this 'SlimServer' product I'm hearing doing that? Any other ideas? (I am aware that I could purchase a portable external hard drive, but they are several orders of magnitude more expensive than their deskbound counterparts.)
Would the airport express combined with a 11g-enabled next-gen iPod be the bees knees of mobile audio, or what?
Maybe Apple or third party could make a power inverter attachment that connects directly to the airport express like the power cord.
I know this probably wouldn't be the coolest possible application of a 11g-enabled iPod, and I'm sure the 4-gen iPod has been talked to death, but this seems like a clear application of "wi-fi data to stereo audio" adaptor.
"Have you heard of some type of thing?" -- anon
On the server:
iTunes > Preferences > Sharing.
Check "Share my music".
On the client:
iTunes > Preferences > Sharing.
Check "Look for shared music".
You are exactly right. Everyone seems to be treating this device as if Apple claimed to be launching the "be all and end all" of home audio mp3 integrations. It is a wireless access point with features of equal importance for (1) travellers who want wireless on the go (2) home users who need wireless (3) home users who want to extend their existing wireless (4) home users who want to print wirelessly (5) music listeners who wish they could play songs on their existing stereo wirelessly. Note how many time wireless showed up in my description. Thats what the product is.
Leave it to Apple to make the digital line in for a MiniDisc finally useful. If I hadn't ditched my MD I'd use this to record iTunes play list to it (in real time though). Otherwise, I have no use for the NetMD check in/check out crap. Also, I've switched to computer based music management so the MD is out anyways.
Mostly correct. One of the functional differences is that AP devices act as a DHCP client on the WAN port, and a DHCP server on the LAN port. Devices connected to the WAN need to have their own valid IP#. (Concequently, no NAT is provided on WAN connections either.)
I can't wait for that di.fm trance internet radio station on iTunes to come blaring out my 5.1 Yamaha system!
The missing piece -- as others have pointed out -- is a roaming display for adjusting songs on the fly. A wi-fi enabled iPod seems likely (if they can overcome the battery drain). But wi-fi enabled iPods are overkill if marketed only for this type of application. Putting wi-fi on an iPod just for music sharing (a very restricted application) is a very high cost to pay (manufacturing). Apple may be reticent to take this approach without also leveraging that expense by providing other PDA-ish behaviors on the iPod (web clipping, email access, etc ...). If they can't overcome that marketing barrier (who wants to pay that much for an iPod that can't do other wi-fi'ish things?), they may just leave the market alone until they can.
Apple's own (unannounced) initiatives in this area aside -- I'll bet we see more than one announcement by the end of the week for PDA software designed to use your wi-fi enabled PDA to control the Express.
There is already an article up at http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/
"Apple's not ruling out taking those sorts of approaches -- Joswiak himself agreed that some sort of remote-control device would be a cool addition to AirPort Express. But as Joswiak put it to me, this is a first step for Apple in getting iTunes music into another part of your life -- in this case, into places where there are no computers or iPods."
Looks like the sought after remote maybe in the not to distant future. Another interesting thing that I have not seen brought up yet is that iTunes is converting the stream in real time to Apple Lossless regardless of original format. This is great for audiophiles especially when going digital to a high end reciever and speakers.
Traffic was just awful!
Anyway, I'm sure by now that this has already been said, but it's clear that the next step will be AirPort Express with RCA A/V jacks and/or S-Video, for connection to a home theater rig-- stream your iMovies and DVDs wirelessly to your living room.
This would be an amazing move-- a suitcase nuke to Microsoft's "Fat Man" media center crapola. You wouldn't need an unwieldy PC shitting up your entertainment center-- just the same Mac you've always had, projecting its media throughout the house wirelessly via some rather unobtrusive modules. I imagine the video version would need some sort of remote.
As I look at the side of my Powerbook, I see one port which would be really nice to have added. If they would add a firewire port and let me mount my external HD, I would be set. It is the only port I use a lot that this thing doesn't include.
The only other ports beyond FireWire that aren't included are the audio in and mini-VGA ports (and the modem, I wonder when those will finally be taken out of the lineup.) I don't really need them (but the VGA would be pretty cool)
Like anyone can even know that
If you have more than one computer, then you probably already have an ethernet switch or hub, so it shouldn't matter, should it? What am I missing here?
In other news today, Apple's .mac servers were given an unexpected stress test today as the Salling Clicker site, hosted on Apple's .mac servers, received a surge of hits from links from slashdot.org.
.mac sites are said to be hosted on Apple's own xServe hardware running MacOS X Server. Sales of Apple's server OS and hardware are expected to rise over the next few days.
The story on slashdot.org had discussions regarding Apple's new AirPort Express that allows users to play iTunes libraries via AirPort wireless networking to their home stereos. Readers questioned just how people would control the music, not wanting to walk from their couches to their PCs to change the song playing. Many suggested Salling Clicker, a product that allows Bluetooth enabled phones and PalmOS devices to act as remote controls for PCs running MacOS X.
Steve Jobs was overheard laughing, "Slashdot Effect?! What Slashdot Effect??!! HA!"
Analysts were telling investors to buy Apple stock, as slashdot readers are expected to be in awe of this resistance to the infamous Slashdot Effect. Apple's
Bill Gates was seen crying in a corner late today. He was babbling incoherently about innovation and how no one could ever need their music piped over WiFi networking to their home stereo. He later showed off his birthmark "666" and suggested that people would prefer Microsoft's innovative solution that would only allow users to listen to music over their stereo system if they paid additional money to the record labels. "I'm sure users will understand paying $1.00US a minute to listen to their music wirelessly"
In related news, RIAA members have begun campaigning for Bill Gates to become the next president of the United States.
Actually, if you use Fast User Switching, and have iTunes open and playing for the separate users, all of the music playing from each user will play at once out of your connected speakers. That doesn't seem like much of a feature until you consider that each user can select which speakers to send a stream to with iTunes/AirTunes.
In other words, you can have your wish (different streams to different speakers) as long as you don't mind logging in a separate user for each stream you want to send.
if a family of users only had laptops, where would they keep their printer? and lets say this family has a home theatre system, with swinging doors on the bottom that reveal empty space , well surely they could keep the printer there , for the random print out of family photos and such (who prints records these days, just save em as pdfs and stick em in documents foldera) i think this is perfect, and the wireless streaming is also excellent, everytime i goto my parents house for the weekend, i bring wires to connect my laptop to the audio system, how annoying, constantly going to the back of the audio system, unplugging the cd player setup or whatever and plugging in my laptop . . . and o wow, i travel to hotels once a month at least, havin this lil bugger w. me is gonna kick ass : ) i used to go to hotels with friends, and id have to plug in my mac laptop to the network , and enable internet sharing through airport so all my pc friends could use internet , thank you apple, keep em comin!!!
1) Integrate remote audio into all media apps in Mac OS X. What's good for iTunes is good for DVD player and QT; hell, it should be possible, on the desktop, to select a remote audio "AirTunes" connection as your standard audio output, with a CoreAudio interface, so that we can use things like Detour to choose the audio for any part of our system to go there. At minimum, though, it should cover all consumer media apps, and should be made open to Real and Microsoft ( if they *ever* release another version of WMP, that is... )
2) Integrate it into a next-gen iPod. If someone comes over with their iPod, I want them to be able to select my stereo and play music. It's a great idea, and it's just yet another reason why the iPod needs WiFi.
3) While you're at it, allow people to put their iPods into "broadcast" mode while they're listening, and let us select the audio from any other iPod in the area. I'm not saying I want to browse their collections - I just want the opportunity to listen to what someone else is listening to. If we can do more than that, great, but I'd settle for a live stream.
4) Pass out this technology to all the games console folks. They can choose whether they decide to include it in their console, turning each console into an AirTunes port I can select, or decide to allow you to select an AirTunes port as the game audio port.
The benefits of this stuff won't really be there until absolutely anything can use it; open it up.
-- A mind is a terrible thing.
Based on This screen shot, it implies you can only listen to your iTunes on your computer OR Erik's Bedroom OR Kitchen speakers OR Living room stereo. NOT simultaneously. Seems like a sucky feature. Am I wrong?
Now I know what to look for in job applications for our hardware division.
You don't even have to do that!
From Apple: "All you have to do is connect your sound system to the audio port on the AirPort Express Base Station using an audio cable . . . iTunes automatically detects the connection of your remote speakers, so you just have to select them in the popup list that appears at the bottom of the iTunes window and click play."
Classic Apple Plug and Play.
Since apple went through the trouble to start a new brand name as opposed to simply calling the AirPort Express "iTunes Enabled" I have a feeling that they are going to be allowing other manufacturers to add this functionality to their products.
Imagine home electronics with a built-in WIFI receiver that is able to decode Protected-AAC and will show up in iTunes automatically as soon as you plug it in!
I can't wait to buy a AirTunes iPod.
Sure, they will have their own devices, but I bet it will also be a new "port" for other companies to use - same as FireWire has become so ubiquitous on video equipment.
And for all you audiophiles out there, remember, iTunes can play apple's loss-less compressed format and the AirPort Express does have a digital audio out, so don't whine about the sound quality of playing compressed audio through your $40,000 stereo.
Please, mods, bump this up. This corrects misinformation expressed earlier.
Rock on. That's awesome. And it makes me wonder if iTunes 4.6 will do all it's streaming that way.
Also, I found this bit of the article you linked to interesting:
f iTunes is playing back a digital multichannel file format like AC3 (Dolby Digital) or DTS, those bitstreams are wrapped in Apple's compression and encryption, and then decoded at the other end. In those cases, AirPort Express would end up streaming the raw AC3 or DTS stream via an optical cable to your home theater receiver for decoding.
Particularly because QuickTime doesn't support AC3 or DTS (without a third-party plugin that is) -- or rather, QuickTime 6.5 doesn't. I don't think it's too big a jump to say that QuickTime 7 will, and will be released at the WWDC.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
And it also explains why Apple is using their own "proprietary" lossless codec -the one recently added to iTunes. They needed a codec that could be easily decoded with a minimum of hardware and for a minimal cost. I don't know that any other lossless codecs around were designed with that in mind.
I would definately like a powerbook, but can't afford one. I don't like WMAs and they sure don't come out of my downloading, encoding, but they end up in my collection anyway. I have 30,000 songs and,honestly, winamp5 is the only program the does a really good job of managing them by their metadata and through multiple playlists. I wish other people would impliment the library in the way winamp5 does. Even with 30,000 songs, on a C3 733, it still loads quickly and searches reasonably fast. (more than I can say for itunes or WMP.)
I do security
your = belongs to you
you're = you are
The earlier posting was referring to FM transmitters, not wi-fi. And believe me, you wouldn't want ten of those!
I, for one, welcome this solution...esp. at the 129$ price tag. Currently i'm using a rebuilt G3 500 i book with a 200 Gig external FW drive for my jukebox. It shares to my other two macs in the house via airport and directly into my stereo via its lineout. I had to slap a keyspan remote on it so that I can change songs whilst reclining on my couch. I would have loved this solution before I spent the time rebuilding that G3. Point of the matter is that FM transmitters radically destroy sound quality...they have to to broadcast. There is a huge natural distortion of freq. (below 35 Hz everything turns to loud boomy soup). In addition if you're not broadcasting near the middle of the FM dial, you'll have crap for stereo seperation....mmmmmm mono. This isn't a little sound loss either, I'm not part of an Audiophile conspiracy--yes I do still listen to vinyl and yes, I have a low power tube amp--but I'm happy for convienance sake to listen to 192kbs+ mp3s and the sound choke from an FM transmitter makes anything other than pop sound like crap. Not to mention, If you live in any reasonably populated area, finding a clear freq. is next to imposible. Wish this'd been out a year earlier. Would have obviated my remote needs as well as allowed me to use my G4 as a controller for the sounds...far more couch friendly options than a 15 button remote. Radio is dead.
"Apple has been investing heavily in both music technology and wireless, said Greg Joswiak, the company's vice president of hardware marketing."
Joswiak? Sounds like a hybrid of Jobs and Wozniak. And he's the vice president of Hardware (Woz's area) Marketing (Jobs' area, let's be realistic).
Are you saying that everybody should just use apples for everything?
Apple makes nice ipods and nice Macs. But beyond that, their peripherals are, um. Naive.
Now, /.'s speak with .75 voice that AirPort Express is wicked cool and a must have. Therefore, Apple will sell only about 10K units and will go out of business within a year.
Still no wireless power supply. I want to get rid of all the cables.