[Michael Johnston]

For a phone, the iPhone has a considerably enormous amount of storage space. Although 8GB is a lot for a phone, it's not a lot when you think of the iPhone as an iPod. An 80GB iPod is the only thing that holds all of my media, but I don't always want to bring it with me. So what happens if I want to hear a podcast or listen to music that I haven't synced to the phone? For this, I use one of my favorite iPhone apps, iPhone Remote (aka Telekinesis).

iPhone remote, for those that don't know, is an application which runs on your Mac as a remote control server. When you access it via Safari on your iPhone, the app provides access to things like your Mac's camera, files, spotlight, scripts, and even the screen itself. In a recent update to Telekinesis, the ability to stream media was added. This, my friends, is the feature I like most.

After starting up and configuring iPhone Remote, the remote is accessed via iPhone's Safari. The URL will end up being your Mac's IP address, followed by the port number (something like https://192.168.1.5:5010). If you want to stream media, you'll want to check the box in iPhone Remote's preferences which says "Share media insecurely". This allows media to be streamed from your Mac to the iPhone. Now all you need to do is tap "Files" on your iPhone and start browsing. If your media isn't in your home folder, you have the ability to see all drives on your Mac by tapping its name at the top of the page. Once you find what you're looking for, tap it and it plays. To do use iPhone Remote outside of your local network, you'll need to forward ports 5010 and 5012 to your Mac.

The only problem you'll face is in what your iPhone can actually play. Essentially, only media that can play on your iPhone via iTunes will work using this method. This means that DivX and large h.264 videos won't play, nor will protected audio and video files. For the most part it works nicely, especially for audio.

Telekinesis is a wonderful application and does much more than just stream media. If you're good at coding, you might want to look into developing a "Tapp". Tapps are little plugins for Telekinesis which add functionality.

Check it out free of charge, at its Google Code page.

Update: Check out the Simplify Media application. It's free and available in the App Store.

[Pepper]

very cool. This is great that all these things are being created for the iphone!

ok this app is really cool.

Everything rocks except the following....

1. Music no playlist support. One song at a time. Umm yeah no so good.

2. Movies, well lets just say this add on was a waste of time. I waited 10 min for my movie to load and it never did.

i will say all the other features are REALLY good. We just need another way to stream content to the iPhone.

even though there isnt support for playlists it still functions very well. I use it to control my music at parties, just so that it can be changed on the fly, also coupled with a macbook pro i can access the camera and take a look at what's going on elsewhere. The mainly use the remote when i set iTunes on a playlist and that works very well almost with instant feedback of the song changing. But yeah if it had support for playlists on the fly then i dont i have anything to complain about.

use a program called "phone home" if you want music streaming via your iTunes playlists

Telekenesis is better for file access.

Originally Posted by ljun

use a program called "phone home" if you want music streaming via your iTunes playlists

Telekenesis is better for file access.

PHONE HOME will not stream it to your iphone like Telekenesis. It only launches it on the remote mac. Not the same thing at all.

Streaming video to the iphone will never work over EDGE. IMHO it is a waste of time to develop this feature.

[donlphi]

Over Wi-Fi this is a GREAT app. It streams quite well if you have your videos in the correct format. Movies downloaded from iTunes work well, as do my movies ripped with Handbrake.

It doesn't have a playlist feature yet, but I'm sure someone decent at programming could create something to make one. I just don't see why you would need to stream music over the internet when you can put hundreds of songs on your phone. Seems a bit overkill.

On the other hand, if I am at the airport waiting to catch a flight, the streaming works great for watching TV shows or a Movie (long layovers).

I have used the streaming for music on one occasion where I wanted a friend to hear a song that wasn't on my iPhone. It even worked well over the Edge Network.

So, yes... iPhone Remote (Telekinesis) is great. It is FREE. It is easy to use.

What else do you want?

Actually, through the use of a Telekinesis App called Now Playing Service, it is possible to control the playback of one iTunes playlist on your iPhone. Create your playlist, sync it with the Song List Updater, run the iPhone Remote and Now Playing Service apps and voila! you can see the song list and play songs using random access ...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Actually, through the use of a Telekinesis App called Now Playing Service, it is possible to control the playback of one iTunes playlist on your iPhone. Create your playlist, sync it with the Song List Updater, run the iPhone Remote and Now Playing Service apps and voila! you can see the song list and play songs using random access ...

I am the one who made both Now Playing and Uniremote. Thank you for using one of my .tapps. I do plan on expanding it, so you can go through any of your playlists, and go through albums, artists, etc. *If you want to the song list feature, you will need to pick up the latest alpha.*

I would recommend Uniremote to anyone who really wants a remote control for their Mac. The one that comes with Telekinesis only controls iTunes. If you are looking for some more power (DVD Player, Keynote, QuickTime, even SlingPlayer) then you should definitely give it a try.

You can find both Uniremote and Now Playing, at http://code.google.com/p/telekinesis-tapps/.

[breakthru]

I also use Telekenesis and its a pretty good start for file access and remote control.

DOT.TUNES 4 (which is now free, as opposed to the v3 which was $30) however fully supports iTunes playlists, streaming music, movies, and playlist creation over the iPhone.

You can check it out at http://dottunes.net

The iPhone plug in is $20 but there is a promotion at http://www.maczot.com/ Saturday, September, 9th where you can get it for 50% off ($10).

[breakthru]

I also use Telekenesis and its a pretty good start for file access and remote control.

DOT.TUNES 4 (which is now free, as opposed to the v3 which was $30) however fully supports iTunes playlists, streaming music, movies, and playlist creation over the iPhone.

You can check it out at http://dottunes.net

The iPhone plug in is $20 but there is a promotion at http://www.maczot.com/ Saturday, September, 9th where you can get it for 50% off ($10).

Also, DOT.TUNES allows for secure (SSL) sharing and user access control down to the playlist level. If you are a musician like me, you can have different clients accessing different lists, only viewing what you have selected for each.

As Telekenesis wasn't really built for that. To share access to your music files would be giving someone else dangerously powerful control in your environment.

Tele is the closest thing to ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) for the iPhone... DOT.TUNES is closest thing to your whole iTunes library on your iPhone.

For anyone looking for an even smoother media playback experience, there's DOT.TUNES, a web based file server which allows you to access, share, publish and manipulate the contents of your iTunes library remotely over any device capable of an internet connection.

The application, which is free, gives you the ability to access and stream all of your media (music, podcasts, movies and videos) across the internet to any media enabled device, including the iPhone, Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation, PSP, PS3, Palm devices, and a host of other devices.

With specialized plug-ins, instead of the typical 'web' view, you experience your iTunes via a customized interface. The plug-ins aren't free, but for a modest price ($10-$20, or more for bundled plug-ins) you can access these features.

I have tried Telekenesis, and have found it a little clunky. Its far from the smooth and intuitive feel of DOT.TUNES. On the iPhone, I didn't like the fact that whenever you selected a target, it brought up a small box which you then had to select an additional action to enable the original activity I wanted to conduct with the target.

Moreover, DOT.TUNES is designed for you to experience your iTunes, not to control your desktop (although you can control your iTunes through DOT.TUNES). So for the mere fact that it was designed as a media application, and was not designed as a remote, makes it a more appropriate application for me.

In any instance, judge for yourself. The iPhone plug-in is going to be on sale at MacZot.com on September 8th. There was a similar promotion at MacUpdate (where I got my plug-in). You can find out more about the promotion at dottunes.net on their blog page.

[iPodAddict]

Wow, dot.tunes looks super cool. Thanks for mentioning it!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

ok this app is really cool.

Everything rocks except the following....

1. Music no playlist support. One song at a time. Umm yeah no so good.

2. Movies, well lets just say this add on was a waste of time. I waited 10 min for my movie to load and it never did.

i will say all the other features are REALLY good. We just need another way to stream content to the iPhone.

if you encode the movies H.264 they will stream just fine. you must keep in mind the athe codex may down sample, like youtube, if you are on a slower connection speed the full G or N for get about A and B wireless routers.

[neil]

OK, this is the maker of both Now Playing and Uniremote tapps.

I have done a little work on Now Playing, and the current alpha (0.4 alpha 2) has "real" playlist support, meaning you have access to all of your playlists instead of just one. From there you can pick what song you want your Mac to play.

However, since I know people want to actually play songs on their iPhone, I am adding "Preview" support in the next alpha. Here is a screenshot:

Basically, when the playlist file gets generated if the file is not an m4p (iTunes store file) it will add the little preview tag, as m4p's can't be played on the iPhone's safari browser. When you press that you can (hopefully) listen to it on your iPhone, assuming you have the media port on. Right now, it works fine, but I have to figure out how to dynamically put http instead of https and the media port in. Basically, if I hard code the beginning of the url into the generated file, it is fine.

If anyone wants the preview of the alpha 3, let me know. You will just have to change part of an AppleScript file.

So, all of this means (eventually) you will be able to listen to your music remotely, in playlist form. It won't be fluid from one song to the next. But it is better than going through you Music folder by artist.

you can find the Now Playing project page here

[Hans]

hmm that seems pretty good
you say its not seemless, how bad is it?
normally 8g is enough for me to work with but i love new toys so this interests me

[neil]

OK, if you guys want to play with Now Playing 0.4 alpha 3 preview (that's a mouthful). Grab it here. Added: Actually this has a major bug. It is recommended that you don't use this, unless you want to be in a land of error messages. I will post a new version soon, as I already have resolved it. I just need to package it.

However, in order to actually use the "Preview" function (listen to your songs on your iPhone) you are going to need to change a part of an AppleScript.

Also, in order to actually use this feature, you will need to enable the media port and open any firewalls.

Once you download the file, don't install the Now Playing.tapp just yet. Right click it > Show Package Contents. (make sure it is the Now Playing.tapp one, and not the Service Application) The go into the "scripts" folder. Open pickerupdater.scpt (it should open with Script Editor).

In that AppleScript hit Command-F (Find) in the find box type "http://192.168.1.100:5012" (without the quotes). Then in the replace box, put the exact same thing EXECPT change your IP address to match what yours is, and if you have changed the media port, change that too. 5012 is the default. Hit replace.

Save that file. Quit. Install the Now Playing.tapp. Run the Now Playing Service.app and click the Update Picker Files button. It will take a while to complete.

Please let me know if something doesn't work, and what you think about it. Hopefully, I can get it so you don't have to go through the AppleScript.

[BigFoot]

Originally Posted by neil

OK, this is the maker of both Now Playing and Uniremote tapps.

I have done a little work on Now Playing, and the current alpha (0.4 alpha 2) has "real" playlist support, meaning you have access to all of your playlists instead of just one. From there you can pick what song you want your Mac to play.

However, since I know people want to actually play songs on their iPhone, I am adding "Preview" support in the next alpha. Here is a screenshot:

Basically, when the playlist file gets generated if the file is not an m4p (iTunes store file) it will add the little preview tag, as m4p's can't be played on the iPhone's safari browser. When you press that you can (hopefully) listen to it on your iPhone, assuming you have the media port on. Right now, it works fine, but I have to figure out how to dynamically put http instead of https and the media port in. Basically, if I hard code the beginning of the url into the generated file, it is fine.

If anyone wants the preview of the alpha 3, let me know. You will just have to change part of an AppleScript file.

So, all of this means (eventually) you will be able to listen to your music remotely, in playlist form. It won't be fluid from one song to the next. But it is better than going through you Music folder by artist.

you can find the Now Playing project page here

Really enjoying this, good work!

I noticed it says you can stream media outside your local network if you forward ports 5010 and 5012, is this something possible to do with out any extra hardware?

[BillyMayes]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I noticed it says you can stream media outside your local network if you forward ports 5010 and 5012, is this something possible to do with out any extra hardware?

This is done in your router's configuration. Search Google for your router and "port forwarding" (with or without quotes)