“This day has been promised by Steve Jobs for over 6 months, and the global release of the iPhone 3G ensured that the new firmware and App Store would be available to US consumers one day early. A direct link to the iPhone 2.0 software, not yet officially available, has enabled early adopters to test out the newly opened platform and the third-party applications it brings with it,” Mykel Nahorniak reports for BetaNews.
“After a quick download and painless upgrade process, I downloaded a few free apps. iPhone applications are synced just like any music or videos being transferred to the device.
One annoyance is the App Store continues to list apps that are already installed as if they haven’t been downloaded, making it difficult to discover more obscure apps.This is unlikely to change, however, as the iTunes Store has behaved this way with music and movies since its inception,” Nahorniak reports. “Of course, the current top 25 apps listed are all games. Who didn’t see that coming?”
“The best iPhone app I’ve seen so far is Apple Remote (by Apple). It connects to your iTunes-enabled computer, or Apple TV, and allows you to manipulate its controls wirelessly. The application even downloads the album art from the host machine and displays it on the iPhone’s screen. Button presses instantaneously affect the host with no lag. Very impressive to say the least,” Nahorniak reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s Remote works very well indeed. iPhone users are prompted to “Choose a Library” and given a four-digit passcode. Then to control iTunes, simply open iTunes, select your remote from the devices list and enter the passcode. Boom! It just works. To control Apple TV, add another library on your iPhone, get another four-digit passcode, go to your Apple TV and choose “Remotes” from the “General” menu in “Settings” and enter the passcode. Again, Boom! It just works. Of note: Remote simply presents and lets you control what’s currently on your Apple TV. You can search via iPhone’s keyboard. These are the categories currently available: Audiobooks, Composers, Genres, Movies, Music Videos, Podcasts, Songs, TV Shows. With this version, you’ll still need the little white remote to control the Apple TV functions like YouTube, searching for and buying/renting content from iTunes Store, etc.
good point. i forgot some folks have their houses hard-wired for sound nowadays.
… and here is a very informative quick CNET review that adds more good points:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9987673-7.html
the remote doesn’t work for me with my itunes. it matches with the code ok, then it says it can’t find the music library (something like that). is it because all my music is stored on an external hard drive connected via airport extreme? i was sort of excited to test it out.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> but so far enjoying the software 2.0! yay apple!
I just updated everything and it is absolutely flawless. I’m controlling my Powerbook, Apple TV and Airport Express all at the same time. I can turn each on and off independently. All this with near zero config. It’s so cool I want to cry. The WOW has started.
Remote is the application I have been waiting for since the dawn of time.
Thank You.
The remote doesn’t find my library either even though it accepted the code. I have my phone using my wireless network so something isn’t right. I have itunes 7.7, etc.
me too! though i’m using OS 10.4.11 (on power pc)… itunes is updated to 7.7. but as i wrote before, all my music is stored in an external drive connected to airport extreme (network). is it because i have about 13000 (too many files?) songs? remote looks so cool and quite useful.
snoopy: @Macintosh: I have it and yes it does allow you to use your iphone to search your AppleTV’s music, movie and tv show libraries. It doesn’t see any of my podcasts for some reason though.
Could it be that it only sees audio podcasts but not video ones? The idea might be that you’d use the TV menu for the latter anyway, not the iPhone remote in that case…