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TUAW Tip: Veency remote controls your iPhone from your Mac

by Mike Schramm Jan 12th 2010 at 10:30AM

Reader Kevin C. sent us a tip the other day -- he recently got a Bose SoundDock II, which is a nice little speaker dock, as a Christmas gift, and he wants to know: with his iPhone sitting all the way across the room, is there any way he can control the iPhone from his Mac? Obviously there are lots of ways to control your Mac with your iPhone, from Apple's official Remote app to multiple VNC programs on the App Store. But in this case, we want to go the other way: control your iPhone's iPod app with a Mac.

Turns out there isn't a way to do it -- unless you jailbreak your iPhone. Using Veency, a jailbreak app that Erica covered about a year or so ago, you can head into your iPhone from your Mac and do anything you want, from changing tracks in iTunes to even sending text messages. Here's an older how-to on getting it working.

Unfortunately, other than that (according to our research -- commenters feel free to jump in, of course), you're out of luck -- Apple is fine with sending commands from the iPhone to the Mac, but not the other way around. Maybe Bose needs to come up with a way for you to stream music over Bluetooth to their speakers so you can keep your iPhone with you.

Update: Our commenters come through as always: Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil will supposedly send audio from your Mac out to your iPhone, and while I haven't tried it myself, we're told that the Bose dock will then play that audio for you. So instead of playing sound on your iPhone, you can just send it music from the Mac and control things that way. And Jeff points out that Belkin makes a Bluetooth dongle, so you can stream music that way as well (and just carry your iPhone with you). So there's a few solutions to try.

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Reader Kevin C. sent us a tip the other day -- he recently got a Bose SoundDock II, which is a nice little speaker dock, as a Christmas...
 

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bodyslam_t

Good Tip of iPhone Thanks

April 04 2010 at 2:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ned

"Unfortunately, other than that (according to our research" or... lack of research... I'm seeing a pattern here.

January 13 2010 at 3:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Rob W

I have used AirPhones; this app is available from the AppStore and allows you to play music from your mac through your iPod touch or iPhone. So for example I can have my iPod touch connected through the headphone jack to my stereo and then remotely play my mac's iTunes library. I presume that this will work with the SoundDock.
P.S. the app has some problems occasionally with making the connection, but once made it works well.

January 12 2010 at 3:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
theoneandonlytp

PodLink is an iPhone/iPod app that lets you control one iPod with another over wi-fi or bluetooth. A desktop app is also in the works.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/podlink/id347075206?mt=8

January 12 2010 at 3:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Pat

My JBL sound dock came with a remote that controls my iPhone (most of the time). I say most of the time because occasionally it comes up saying that it is "not compatible with this device" or something like that. But quite often it still controls it then. It will usually control track forward, back, volume up & down, etc. I realize this isn't exactly what you're looking for but it might solve your fundamental problem?

January 12 2010 at 2:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tom Neff

For music there is also Simplify - it even works on the road if your 3G is decent.

January 12 2010 at 1:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MATT1604

Don't forget ScreenSplitr http://screensplitr.com/

In my experiences, I've found that both work equally well. However, Veency is slightly better if you have a preferred screen sharing app.

January 12 2010 at 11:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JT

I stream audio from my Mac to my iPhone (plugged into a portable Bose SoundDock) using Airfoil on the Mac, and the Speakers app on the iPhone. It works for any audio (i.e., not just iTunes) without needing to jailbreak anything. Great for web radio that doesn't live in iTunes.

January 12 2010 at 10:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to JT's comment
brandon

yeah airfoil is the best non-jailbreaking way.

i just restored my jailbroken phone, I miss SBSsettings.
and this app to control my iphone with my mac would be awesome.

January 12 2010 at 10:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jeff

The Bose Sound Dock 10 has a BT receiver module that can be placed in the unit. Also, Belkin makes a $50 BT dongle that may be plugged into any AUX input port. http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=508754

January 12 2010 at 10:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Gary Brinkman

Don't forget to get the SBSettings toggle to turn veency on an off quickly.

January 12 2010 at 10:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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