I'm a big fan of Apple's AirPlay (formally known as AirTunes) technology. It all started with the AirPort Express Base Station and the ability to attach speakers/stereo receiver, etc. to your AirPort Express and stream music wirelessly to those connected speakers. Since those days AirTunes has evolved into what Apple calls AirPlay today and this change in name is because it's no longer limited to sound. With AirPlay you can also stream video wirelessly to a compatible device such as an Apple TV 2 from your Mac/PC or iOS Device. I LOVE AirPlay!
AirFoil Gives Me AirPlay for My other Apps
While iTunes has supported AirPlay (AirTunes) for several years, the technology hasn't made its way into the Mac OS in general. You would think by now that with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion you'd be able to set your Sound Prefs to your AirPlay speakers for ALL of your Apps. Alas, this isn't the case and quite frankly I listen to more than just the stuff I have in iTunes. Take Pandora Radio for example. They've got a cool desktop App now and it would be a pity to be limited to just my computer speakers (or directly connected speakers on my computer). Luckily the good folks over at Rouge Amoeba have a great solution. It's called AirFoil. AirFoil is an Application that allows you to stream ANY of your Mac (or Windows) audio sources via AirPlay. I've used this App before, but hadn't upgraded to the latest version until recently. Wow! They've made some really nice improvements not the least being the ability to turn your Mac into an AirPlay speaker as well for your iOS devices or other Macs. This is great for presentations from your iDevices where the Mac is hooked up to a projector and speakers.
With AirFoil setup I could see all of my various AirPlay devices as well as assign the audio source to a specific App (such as Pandora) or have it take over all of my system audio. I was also able to stream to multiple AirPlay devices (rooms) without skipping a beat. It's also nice having individual volume controls for each AirPlay device.
Perhaps someday Apple will see fit to make AirPlay a system wide resource, but for now it's great having AirFoil pick up the slack. Now we just need the next AirFoil update to stream all things video to Apple TV 2 and it would be Heaven!
You can get AirFoil here.
One of the most exciting things about the NEW 4th generation iPod touch is the addition of both a front facing camera and rear camera. As you would expect with the rear camera you can shoot stills and HD video. However, with the front facing camera you also get to use FaceTime to make FREE video calls over the internet to other iPod touch and iPhone 4 users. Let's face it, there are people that will never buy an iPhone. The reasons people usually give are things like "I hate AT&T", "I'm happy with my current carrier", "I'm happy with my current phone", etc. However, in more cases than not those same people usually buy iPod touch devices to use the thousands of Apps out there. Now if you buy a NEW iPod touch you're that much closer to having an iPhone without a contract or monthly fees. There were already a slew of ways of using an iPod touch as a phone while in a WiFi area with various VoIP apps. FaceTime on the iPod touch now gives you a native way to do it with video to boot. Although I have an iPhone 4, I use the iPod touch as my "iPod" when I want to dock it and listen to music while still using my phone for other things. I was happy with my 2nd generation iPod touch and saw no reason to go to the 3rd generation, but when I saw all the new features on the 4th generation I decided it was time to upgrade. While I love the Retina display, new slimmer body, 32GB capacity (my old one was 16GB), faster processor and HD video camera I'm most excited about FaceTime for friends and family members. Let's take a look at how it works:
FaceTime is an App
Unlike the iPhone 4, there is no "Phone" app to integrate FaceTime into on the touch. Therefore on the iPod touch FaceTime is a dedicated built-in App. When you want to make FaceTime calls you launch the App. If there are people you FaceTime with on a regular basis you can add them to the App's Favorites for quick access. Also the App does NOT need to be running to receive calls. When someone calls you, the iPod touch will detect the incoming call and start ringing no matter which App you're currently running.
Here's a quick tip for travelers that travel with both a MacBook and an iOS device such as an iPad, iPod touch or iPhone. Although I usually travel with an Airport Express for those times when I'm in a hotel room with Internet access via ethernet, sometimes I'm in a conference center and I'm connected to the center's internet via ethernet directly into my MacBook Pro. In those cases I'm usally doing a software demo and my Airport Express is back in the hotel room. Also in those cases I'm usually either using my iPad/iPhone and/or I'm presenting with colleagues that also need internet access. The problem is that in those cases there are rarely multiple ethernet plugs and nor is there WiFi (well sometimes there's WiFi, but usually at an additional cost).
I do the next best thing
I plug the ethernet cable in my MacBook Pro and then I enable Internet Sharing via the Sharing System Preferences. This in effect turns your MacBook notebook into a temporary WiFi hotspot for other devices to share your internet connection. You can share any internet connection you have to the Mac over any other connection the Mac has built-in.
For example, if you are connected to the internet via ethernet, then that means you can share that connection over the Mac's built-in AirPort (WiFi) card. If you are connected to the internet via AirPort then you could share that connection to another Mac/PC over ethernet. This even works for those 3G USB data cards too. So if you were connected to the internet via a 3G USB/ExpressCard data card you could share that internet connection to other devices over ethernet OR AirPort. You can do any combination, you just can't share the connection you have over the SAME type of connection. So if you're connected via AirPort you can NOT share that connection over AirPort. Best of all if you share your connection over AirPort you can even password protect your temporary WiFi hotspot to keep others off your connection and from stealing your bandwidth.
My boss was very appreciative of the fact that when we were in London and I was presenting, she could be in the audience with her MacBook Pro and catch up on email "wirelessly" during the breaks since I had the only ethernet connection, on stage, as there was no other WiFi connection in the venue.
Last week I took a business trip to Asia and of course I took my iPad WiFi+3G 64GB with me. Since this was a business trip and my job involves doing software demonstrations, I also took my MacBook Pro. I planed to use the iPad primarily for travel and in-flight entertainment.
Entertainment on the long flights
The week before I left on my trip I decided not to watch any of my favorite TV shows that week. Instead I wanted to save them to watch on the long haul flights. So I TiVo'd them as usual on my TiVo HD and then using Toast 10 Titanium Pro I transferred them to my iMac and then converted them from the .tivo files into .MP4 files to be loaded onto the iPad. This worked great and I had several hours of entertainment to last me all the way to Singapore. Although I had games on the iPad, I wasn't in the mood to play any. Instead I just watched TV show after TV show or slept (ok, tried to sleep). I can't really comment on battery life because I had power at my seat on each flight. So there was never a need to run on battery. Since I'm not into books I didn't download any and even if I wanted to, the iBookstore is very lacking in titles at the moment. Every book that I have searched for that I would consider buying isn't available yet. So even if I wanted an eBook I would have to do it via the Kindle App.
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