Apple Remote without the Apple

April 5, 2011 12:54 PM

iTunesFilter: I used to own an iPhone, and used Remote to control iTunes at home. I have both Macs and PCs at home, and would like to use both to be able to control iTunes playback on another machine (old system dedicated to stereo in kitchen/living room) remotely. I'd prefer not to use Remote Desktop.

1. Is there PC software to allow me to control iTunes from another PC in a simple way (in fact, if the interface were near identical to 'Remote' I'd be happy)?

2. Is there Mac software to let me do this, too?

posted by smitt to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

TuneConnect does this for the Mac. There are a few others, but this is the one I've liked the best.
posted by wyzewoman at 12:57 PM on April 5, 2011

But I should mention that this (as well as all the other solutions I found) requires you to install some additional software on the music server; that software will listen for your remote commands and then talk to iTunes on the server. It works, but it's not the most elegant; much better would be if programs could talk directly to iTunes using the same protocol as Remote, but I'm not sure that's possible.
posted by wyzewoman at 1:00 PM on April 5, 2011

Best answer: Some combination of Home Sharing and Airfoil should accomplish what you want.
posted by designbot at 4:57 PM on April 5, 2011

Response by poster: AirFoil works pretty well, doesn't play as well with all devices running over wireless-G, but that's okay.
posted by smitt at 11:48 AM on April 9, 2011