Filed under: Audio, iPod Family, Internet Tools, iPhone
DOT.TUNES brings wifi streaming to iPhone and iPod Touch
In a recent Ask TUAW we were asked about solutions for streaming iTunes music to an iPhone and had to report that there weren't many good options out there. Now, however, DOT.TUNES has released two plugins that bring wifi (not EDGE) streaming to both the iPhone and the iPod Touch, respectively. DOT.TUNES basically turns your Mac into a web server for streaming iTunes content across your local network or across the internet. The two new plugins optimize the interface for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. With either you get access to your playlists, artists, albums, etc. Of course any time you run your Mac as a server there are potential security concerns, but DOT.TUNES appears to be a great way to get iTunes content onto your iPhone or iPod Touch over the internet. They've even set up a demo server that will show you how it works (click here for the iPhone interface).
DOT.TUNES 4 itself is a free download, but the iPhone and iPod Touch plugins are $20 each.
[via MacNN]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pete Zich said 12:11PM on 10-18-2007
Sweet, if streaming is working, dual streaming voip isn't too much of a stretch.
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kory said 12:26PM on 10-18-2007
I bought it yesterday and it works awesome, but I can't get it to work over my remote server connection. They have great live help via chat, though, so should be able to get it remedied soon!
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Mo said 12:39PM on 10-18-2007
The app for the iPod Touch that I want is one which works as a client for iTunes Music Sharing, with the usual genre/artist/album/playlist browsing. In reality, I just want *Apple* to add it as a feature, but I'd settle for a third-party app (provided it did background playback the way the iPod/iPhone do).
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Martin Voshell said 12:55PM on 10-18-2007
Now that we might be able to see our shared music libraries on 'em- I'd much rather see this go the other way and see Apple implement sharing over airtunes FROM the iphone/touch
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Ryan Riddle said 1:08PM on 10-18-2007
Cool idea, but what's up with that name? "dot" "."?
That's like saying ATM machine, or PIN number.
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Galley said 1:13PM on 10-18-2007
or Hot Water Heater... ;-)
Anyway, I sure hope Apple comes up with some kind of streaming solution in the future.
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Zisho said 1:44PM on 10-18-2007
Remote Buddy lets me use my IPhone as ITunes Remote, including support for the AirPort Express. I get the full ITunes experience with it - with covers and all. Using Remote Buddy for me is much better than streaming track by track with Dot.Tunes as that would need my constant attention on every single track change! Remote Buddy: http://www.iospirit.com/remotebuddy/
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Justin said 2:08PM on 10-18-2007
I'll say this again in hopes that someone will implement it... I'd like to see mount_afp or mount_nfs functionality in the iPhone; that way you could symlink the mount to the iPod_Control (whatever the name of the folder is with mp3's), and effectively have a 100GB iphone.
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Mathies said 2:24PM on 10-18-2007
How about streaming the music from the iPhone to my Airport Express?
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Tyler said 3:11PM on 10-18-2007
I've had this program for more than a month, and the most recently released update is the first that ALMOST works as advertised. Video files longer than 15 mins or larger than 150 Mbs still don't work, though...
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brian said 3:53PM on 10-18-2007
Justin--I've got the next best thing. (Hope no one minds if I plug the system I developed.) Since the iPhone can't mount filesystems, it's browser-based.
http://pixelcity.com/iphone-streaming-music/
It's pretty simple--just a couple files that works with the Apache web server that comes with OS X. Right now you browse by artist, then album, then song (all it does, really, is serve out the files as they exist in your ~/Music folder) but I'm working on search, playlists, etc. It should be pretty fully-featured in November. (1.0 right now, 1.1 next week.)
Pros: Free, works over EDGE (if coverage/speed is fast enough; sometimes it
is; also depends on the bitrate the music is encoded at; plus of course you must have an Internet connection with a high enough upstream connection to stream.)
Cons: Setup involves more than double-clicking an icon (but it's still pretty simple.)
Give it a shot, at least. You can always pay for DOT.TUNES later if it doesn't work out. :-)
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Justin said 4:03PM on 10-18-2007
brian--looks neat, except anything that requires a web server (or computer) isn't going to work in my case. I usually have my laptop on me and the drive with all my music is plugged into the network at home.
*holds out for filesystem mounting*
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brian said 4:19PM on 10-18-2007
Justin--just do what you originally planned, except instead of mounting the home filesystem with your iPhone, mount it with the laptop, then share out the music from that. Clunky? Sure. But if you're on the go and really want to hear "Hazy Shade of Winter"... :-)
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yuhoga said 7:52PM on 10-18-2007
i've used dot.tunes on edge - it definitely works. it's a great little program for now.
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samson said 9:20PM on 10-18-2007
i've used it on Edge too works fine... i use it when walking the dog, Edge is really strong in my neighborhood tho. also Tyler I have watched larger than 150MB files on it a few times, they were mp4 if that helps.
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diego said 10:47AM on 10-19-2007
I tried dot.tunes for Wii streaming and I swore that I had an influx of junk mail for a period after that. Usually my spam filter catches them, but I ended up not using it to stream anything.
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Jeff Ayling said 8:48AM on 10-20-2007
Hey diego,
Jeff here from DOT.TUNES
I absolutely swear on my children that DOT.TUNES has never ever sent a spam email - not once, ever. Nor have we ever sold, rented or otherwise made our client info available to a 3rd party.
I assure you it would have been a coincidence. I hate spam with a passion and we value and respect our clients much more than to abuse their trust.
To prove this to you - a challenge anyone to simply create a new gmail account or a special email account with any provider and don't use the account for any other purpose than to register DOT.TUNES - then watch and see if you receive any email in that account.
I hope that helps reassure you that we would never and will never be involved in email spam. EVER!!!
Zisho, you can certainly use DOT.TUNES to control and play tracks via iTunes as well - and it's free and requires no plugins.
Cheers
Jeff
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DC said 1:56PM on 1-17-2008
if you're music is stored on a windoze xp system, try orb from orb.com...its free...
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