Hasta La Gadget!

AirView is a free iOS app that lets you send video wirelessly between iOS devices, and from iTunes to iPhones and iPads.

The app does this by tapping into Apple’s AirPlay, the technology introduced in iOS 4.2 that lets you send music and movies from your iPhone to compatible devices. Up until now, “compatible devices” has meant either the AirPort Express router, the AppleTV v2 and a handful of third-party stereos.

Run the AirView app on any iOS device and it will then show up on your Wi-Fi network as a new destination for video, just like any other, and you’ll be able to choose it in the pop up list in iTunes or another iOS device. This lets you stream from iTunes to an iPad (previously impossible), or to send a movie from your iPhone to your friend’s iPad when you go visit.

It works perfectly in testing, with one big caveat: the app is for video-only. You can’t stream audio (although movie audio is transmitted, of course). This means you can’t use an old, broken iPod Touch as a makeshift AirPort Express. Not yet, anyway.

It’s worth grabbing this one now, as you never know when you may need it, it’s free, and it’s only 400k in size.

Also worth a mention is AirFoil, a well-established Mac (and now Windows) application from Rogue Amoeba which lets you stream any audio from a Mac (not just from iTunes) to an Airport Express or iOS device. That costs $25.

AirView product page [iTunes]

See Also:

• The Hidden Secrets of Apple's AirPlay
• AirPlay Can Stream to Apple TV From Any iOS App – Not Just iTunes …
• 3 Secret Apple TV Features Steve Jobs Hasn't Told You About …
• AirPlayer Lets You Stream Video From iOS to Mac

Although DLNA may have had a significant head start, the streaming media standard available on more than 9,000 devices is about to be challenged in a very big way by Apple’s upstart AirPlay technology. At least it will be if Jordan Watters, BridgeCo‘s VP of Sales and Marketing, is to be believed. BridgeCo as you’ll recall, is the company that makes the silicon for AirPlay devices — currently an exclusive arrangement we’re told. While Apple may have thrust BridgeCo into the consumer spotlight, this ten year old company has a long history of quietly providing networked media processors and connectivity software to a who’s who of audio companies. Here at CES we’ve already seen two speakers from iHome, the Zeppelin Air from B&W, and a trio of speakers from the previously unannounced AirPlay partner Klipsch rolled out. And this is just the beginning.

According to Jordan Watters, AirPlay devices could ultimately dwarf “made for iPod” audio docks by 2x to 4x. Part of the reason for Jordan’s optimism is the fact that so many iOS devices have already been sold and that many audio devices already on the market using BridgeCo chips can add AirPlay functionality via a software update, including the nine receivers just announced from Denon and Marantz. “The ecosystem is already there,” he said smiling. And unlike iPod docks which are usually sold at a rate of one per iOS device, Watters sees consumers purchasing multiple AirPlay devices for every iOS device sold in order to enable whole-home distributed audio. In fact, growth could come as a “step function ramp sucking into the market,” Jordan enthused. In other words, he expects AirPlay growth to be explosive. We’d chalk up the hyperbolic talk to Jordan’s marketing role if it weren’t for the abundance of anecdotal evidence supporting his claims here at CES. To start with, the company’s modest meeting room was packed with interested manufacturers poking around BridgeCo’s AirPlay offering. Jordan’s also booked back-to-back-to-back with meetings until the show ends (and into the coming weeks we suspect). But what really convinced us was an all-in-one speaker prototype from a major consumer electronics company that was quickly whisked away before meeting the sensor beneath our D300’s lens. If they’re involved, well, we expect the rest will follow.

Apple AirPlay devices set to explode in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been dying to play with a third-party AirPlay speaker system ever since Apple opened the tech up, and iHome was happy to oblige here at CES with the new iW1. The wireless speaker system features two three-inch woofers and two one-inch tweeters with Bongiovi audio processing, a built-in lithium-ion battery with a grab-and-go charging base, and capacitive touch controls — and, just as we suspected, AirPlay compatibility courtesy of BridgeCo. iHome’s also developed a new iOS configuration app called iHome Connect that’ll help you get the iW1 on your WiFi network quickly, although regular WPS setup is also supported. You can also charge your iPhone or iPod by plugging into the USB port in the back — iHome is packing a cable in the box.

Streaming from iOS was just as simple as with the Apple TV or Airport Express, and we only saw minimal lag between control inputs like volume and track changes, just as with an all-Apple setup. Interestingly, iOS only supports point-to-point AirPlay streaming right now, so you can only use a single speaker at a time, but if you’re streaming from iTunes you can hit multiple speakers at once, regardless of vendor. iHome is still tuning the audio performance, so we’ll reserve judgment on that until we get a review unit — which should happen when this guy ships for $300 in March. Video after the break.

Continue reading iHome iW1 AirPlay wireless speaker hands-on

iHome iW1 AirPlay wireless speaker hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 18:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fine purveyor of high end audio products Bowers & Wilkins is on hand here at Digital Experience showing off its latest product, the Zeppelin Air. An addition to its existing Zeppelin line, the Air adds in AirPlay functionality for effortless streaming from iTunes or an iOS device. Stainless steel accents complement the oblong shaped boombox, and it can connect to your home network using either WiFi or Ethernet. We couldn’t objectively judge sound quality in the acoustics of this massive Caesar’s Palace conference room, but we’d expect nothing less than the best considering the price tag — a steep $600. Feel free to feast your eyes on some speaker porn in the gallery below, that doesn’t cost a thing.

Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin Air speaker hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s AirPlay streaming feature enables the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to stream video and audio to the Apple TV 2. But why stop there?

Wired.com’s friend Erica Sadun has been hard at work hacking away at AirPlay to expand its powers. About a week ago she released AirPlayer, a Mac app to stream video from the the Apple TV to the Mac. And just recently she released AirFlick to do the reverse: stream video from the Mac to the Apple TV. No jailbreaking required.

If you own a Mac and the new Apple TV, you need the AirFlick hack, because it makes AirPlay way more useful. You already can stream video from the Mac to the Apple TV, but you’re limited to iTunes-compatible videos (.H264-encoded MP4). AirFlick adds support for a multitude of video formats that you wouldn’t be able to stream normally (such as AVI, MKV, FLV, WMV and RMVB).

The AirFlick and AirPlayer hacks are in very early development stages, so be warned: Some features might be buggy. They’re free downloads, though, so give it a whirl. See the video above for a quick tutorial.

AirPlay utilities [Erica Sadun]

See Also:

• 3 Secret Apple TV Features Steve Jobs Hasn’t Told You About …
• Hands-On With New $100 Apple TV
• 5 Reasons Why Apple TV Is (Still) Boring
• Why iOS Could Make Apple TV Succeed
• Tweet of the Day: AirPlay Is Apple’s Little Thing to Make a Big …