Subscribe
Previous Post
Wireless is the way to go nowadays. Cables are just so ugghh.. 20th century. Unfortunately wireless headphones do cost a lot of money. Especially stereo headphones.
AirPhones is a new app available for iPhone/iPod Touch that will allow you to stream music from your computer to your device, essentially making your iPhone/iPod Touch a wireless headphone.
It’s able to stream audio from iTunes, VLC, etc.
You need to purchase the app for $6.99 and download the server for your Mac. Currently it supports only Intel Macs. A universal binary as well as support for Windows is coming according to the creator.
You pair your device with your computer and it will stream your computer’s audio to your device.
I got my review copy of the AirPhones, installed it on my iPod Touch as well as install the AirPhones server on my MacBook Pro. It was quick and easy. I had it running in a few minutes.
First impressions were mixed. I was able to listen to music from iTunes, stream the audio from the tv show I was watching with VLC. However when I was using the DVD Player app it wasn’t streaming audio properly. I could barely hear it.
In some cases there’s also audio latency. The TV Show I was watching was out of sync. The audio and video didn’t match.
I understand that this is a first version and improvements will be made. I can understand and appreciate the concept. I see the instances wherein this app would certainly be useful. Example, if I really have a big audio library or if the music I wanted to listen to was in our family computer and my iPod was not sync to that. I could use this to listen to it while walking around the house. Stuff like that.
I’m being honest though when I say that the price is a little bit high. Now, I know that apps shouldn’t be dirt cheap and developers should be properly compensated for their work. However, for my needs, I would be hard pressed to spend $6.99 on this app.
That being said, it’s a good concept, it needs work to get some bugs out and I’m pretty sure that some people would gladly pay the price tag for this app.
I do hope that iTunes will allow demo versions to be downloaded because apps like this which are priced higher would benefit greatly from demo versions first. This is so that a lot more people can try it first and then decide if it’s worth paying money for. With the current system customers will be scared to plunk in money for an app that they haven’t tried. It’s a shame too for developers who can’t get people to try their products.
For more info on AirPhones visit their site here.
Download the app from iTunes here.
