iPad Remote, Apple TV, and Home Sharing

[Martin S Taylor]

Last week I bought an Apple TV and downloaded the Remote app to control it
(and stream music) from my iPad.

It is now clear that Apple have abandoned all notion of consistency between
apps, and are working on the policy of sticking any new features into iTunes,
or, if they logically belong in iTunes, then into Remote.

Let's just check I've got this right: to stream from my computer to my Apple
TV I use Remote.app; to stream from my computer to my iPad I use Music.app,
but to do this I must connect to Home Sharing using Remote. Running Home
Sharing on both computer and Apple TV allows anyone using my TV to see all my
videos on my computer's iTunes.

To allow anyone else access to any of this, I have to let them use Home
Sharing using my Apple ID.

And I haven't even started on the interface yet.

If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, music streaming appears to
have been designed by a committee of camels.

I'll calm down in a couple of days...

Martin S Taylor

[Woody]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Last week I bought an Apple TV and downloaded the Remote app to control it
(and stream music) from my iPad.
It is now clear that Apple have abandoned all notion of consistency between
apps, and are working on the policy of sticking any new features into iTunes,
or, if they logically belong in iTunes, then into Remote.
Let's just check I've got this right: to stream from my computer to my Apple
TV I use Remote.app; to stream from my computer to my iPad I use Music.app,
but to do this I must connect to Home Sharing using Remote. Running Home
Sharing on both computer and Apple TV allows anyone using my TV to see all my
videos on my computer's iTunes.

I dont think so. I don't know what remote.app is. You stream from your
iPad to the appleTV by any app that has a stream button (so iPlayer,
youtube, tvcatchup and yes, music and videos). Phone I guess the same,
dont use it. Itunes streams from the mac, or with newer macs you can
just send the screen.

Post by Martin S Taylor
To allow anyone else access to any of this, I have to let them use Home
Sharing using my Apple ID.

I don't use home sharing.

Post by Martin S Taylor
And I haven't even started on the interface yet.
If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, music streaming appears to
have been designed by a committee of camels.
I'll calm down in a couple of days...

Oh, maybe this is a new type of appleTV, mine isn't like that. Mine is
also jailbreaked, but it was the same before hand.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor
Let's just check I've got this right: to stream from my computer to my Apple
TV I use Remote.app; to stream from my computer to my iPad I use Music.app,
but to do this I must connect to Home Sharing using Remote. Running Home
Sharing on both computer and Apple TV allows anyone using my TV to see all my
videos on my computer's iTunes.

I dont think so. I don't know what remote.app is. You stream from your
iPad to the appleTV by any app that has a stream button (so iPlayer,
youtube, tvcatchup and yes, music and videos). Phone I guess the same,
dont use it.

Yes, streaming from the iPad/iPhone to the TV is easy.

Post by Woody
Itunes streams from the mac, or with newer macs you can
just send the screen.

Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

MST

[Woody]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor
Let's just check I've got this right: to stream from my computer to my
Apple TV I use Remote.app; to stream from my computer to my iPad I use
Music.app, but to do this I must connect to Home Sharing using Remote.
Running Home Sharing on both computer and Apple TV allows anyone using
my TV to see all my videos on my computer's iTunes.

I dont think so. I don't know what remote.app is. You stream from your
iPad to the appleTV by any app that has a stream button (so iPlayer,
youtube, tvcatchup and yes, music and videos). Phone I guess the same,
dont use it.

Yes, streaming from the iPad/iPhone to the TV is easy.

Post by Woody
Itunes streams from the mac, or with newer macs you can
just send the screen.

Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

Do you? Mine just streams across. Having said that, I tend to just play
music from the laptop but I am sure last time I tried video, it worked.

[Elliott Roper]

In article <***@news.virginmedia.com>,
Martin S Taylor <***@hRyEpMnOoVtEiTsHm.cIo.uSk> wrote:

<snip>

Post by Martin S Taylor
Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

I have home sharing enabled on my Macs and Apple TV

To get at a video on a Mac from the Apple TV, I put the video into
iTunes on a suitable Mac. On the Apple TV I go to Computers, then
choose the right Mac, then choose videos (or TV shows depending where
iTunes 11's stupid quagmire of an interface chose to put it on the
Mac), select the video and away it plays.

Yes yes yes, it is bonkers. The whole iTunes iCloud malarkey is so
badly thought out and even more badly implemented that it leaves you
begging for Finder on iOS. All that preparation is there so they could
make the touch interface even more twee than it needed to be.

I wonder what Tim Cook has to do to get Avie Tevanian back?

[Woody]

Post by Elliott Roper
<snip>

Post by Martin S Taylor
Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

I have home sharing enabled on my Macs and Apple TV
To get at a video on a Mac from the Apple TV, I put the video into
iTunes on a suitable Mac. On the Apple TV I go to Computers, then
choose the right Mac, then choose videos (or TV shows depending where
iTunes 11's stupid quagmire of an interface chose to put it on the
Mac), select the video and away it plays.
Yes yes yes, it is bonkers. The whole iTunes iCloud malarkey is so
badly thought out and even more badly implemented that it leaves you
begging for Finder on iOS. All that preparation is there so they could
make the touch interface even more twee than it needed to be.

I must admit, with the apple software as is, if I want to play videos I
get them in the right format to be in iTunes, then connect on the tv
etc, and it is a bit of a faff.

With it jailbroken, I buy a dvd, I put it in a computer, I stream it to
the appleTV. Or I get something from bit torrent and it plays right from
the folder it downloaded on the network. Or I play it from iPlayer, or
4od or 5, or itv player, or nasa tv, or straight from the web etc.

One day it would be nice if the apple software could be there to not
stop you doing what you want to do.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Woody
One day it would be nice if the apple software could be there to not
stop you doing what you want to do.

Tomorrow. Jailbreak for all Apple devices.

Except the one I'm ranting about.

MST

[Woody]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Woody
One day it would be nice if the apple software could be there to not
stop you doing what you want to do.

Tomorrow. Jailbreak for all Apple devices.
Except the one I'm ranting about.

Thats a pain. I found the appleTV a moderately interesting device with
some use when I bought it. After jailbreak it becomes a central part of
the way I watch television.

Its a shame you have to manually do that other step and that they spend
more effort making sure you can't rather than spending the time making
sure you didn't need to.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor
Tomorrow. Jailbreak for all Apple devices.
Except the one I'm ranting about.

Thats a pain. I found the appleTV a moderately interesting device with
some use when I bought it. After jailbreak it becomes a central part of
the way I watch television.
Its a shame you have to manually do that other step and that they spend
more effort making sure you can't rather than spending the time making
sure you didn't need to.

Yep.

Once it's jailbroken, can you get BBC iPlayer directly? [1]

I (and especially Vt) am miffed that in *two* Apple Stores and by Apple Uwer
Support we were explicitly told you can get iPlayer. And yet it seems the
only way is to stream it from an iDevice - something we could do without the
Apple TV from a laptop.

MST

[1] Academic question, of course, since I'll be jailbreaking four iPhones, an
iPad and an iPad mini tomorrow - but not my Apple TV 3.

[Woody]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor
Tomorrow. Jailbreak for all Apple devices.
Except the one I'm ranting about.

Thats a pain. I found the appleTV a moderately interesting device with
some use when I bought it. After jailbreak it becomes a central part of
the way I watch television.
Its a shame you have to manually do that other step and that they spend
more effort making sure you can't rather than spending the time making
sure you didn't need to.

Yep.
Once it's jailbroken, can you get BBC iPlayer directly? [1]

Yes. I have xbmc(?) on mine which has a series of modules, one of which
is iPlayer (there is one for all the channels). Its not like the iOS
version, but just a list of what files are there and a play.
Works pretty well.

You also get all the other modules, there are quite a few tech site
channels, nasa tv etc.

Post by Martin S Taylor
I (and especially Vt) am miffed that in *two* Apple Stores and by Apple Uwer
Support we were explicitly told you can get iPlayer. And yet it seems the
only way is to stream it from an iDevice - something we could do without the
Apple TV from a laptop.

Thats poor - that isn't having iPlayer, that is playing a stream.

Post by Martin S Taylor
[1] Academic question, of course, since I'll be jailbreaking four iPhones, an
iPad and an iPad mini tomorrow - but not my Apple TV 3.

Jaibreaking party!

[SM]

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Woody
One day it would be nice if the apple software could be there to not
stop you doing what you want to do.

Tomorrow. Jailbreak for all Apple devices.
Except the one I'm ranting about.

Thats a pain. I found the appleTV a moderately interesting device with
some use when I bought it. After jailbreak it becomes a central part of
the way I watch television.
Its a shame you have to manually do that other step and that they spend
more effort making sure you can't rather than spending the time making
sure you didn't need to.

It's annoying the ATV 3 can't be jailbroken but I didn't want to pay the
extra for a second hand 2 at the time - not so sure now.

Stuart

[Woody]

Post by SM

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Woody
One day it would be nice if the apple software could be there to not
stop you doing what you want to do.

Tomorrow. Jailbreak for all Apple devices.
Except the one I'm ranting about.

Thats a pain. I found the appleTV a moderately interesting device with
some use when I bought it. After jailbreak it becomes a central part of
the way I watch television.
Its a shame you have to manually do that other step and that they spend
more effort making sure you can't rather than spending the time making
sure you didn't need to.

It's annoying the ATV 3 can't be jailbroken but I didn't want to pay the
extra for a second hand 2 at the time - not so sure now.

Well, there will be a jailbreak for it at some point I would imagine. I
think it is actually more important for the appleTV than the iPhone, as
an unjailbroken phone is more useful than an unjailbroken aTV.

[SM]

Post by Woody

Post by SM
It's annoying the ATV 3 can't be jailbroken but I didn't want to pay the
extra for a second hand 2 at the time - not so sure now.

Well, there will be a jailbreak for it at some point I would imagine. I
think it is actually more important for the appleTV than the iPhone, as
an unjailbroken phone is more useful than an unjailbroken aTV.

I guess they'll get there one day - I read why it's more difficult to
jailbreak the 3 but it didn't mean much to me.

I had XBMC on an original XBox which was fine for standard def except
for the noisy fan. In fairness the aTV is a bit neater!

Stuart

[SM]

Post by Elliott Roper
<snip>

Post by Martin S Taylor
Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

I have home sharing enabled on my Macs and Apple TV
To get at a video on a Mac from the Apple TV, I put the video into
iTunes on a suitable Mac. On the Apple TV I go to Computers, then
choose the right Mac, then choose videos (or TV shows depending where
iTunes 11's stupid quagmire of an interface chose to put it on the
Mac), select the video and away it plays.
Yes yes yes, it is bonkers. The whole iTunes iCloud malarkey is so
badly thought out and even more badly implemented that it leaves you
begging for Finder on iOS. All that preparation is there so they could
make the touch interface even more twee than it needed to be.
I wonder what Tim Cook has to do to get Avie Tevanian back?

The Apple TV experience is nine parts magic to one part tragic. Beamer
helps with the mishmash of video formats I've got.

Stuart

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Fri, 1 Feb 2013 21:49:52 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Woody
Itunes streams from the mac, or with newer macs you can
just send the screen.

Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

That's where the AppleTV's own UI comes in, surely? It's connected to
your iTunes...

Cheers - Jaimie

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

That's where the AppleTV's own UI comes in, surely? It's connected to
your iTunes...

Ah, but then it only lets you access your own iTunes. If you want to access
shared libraries (that's 'shared' in the old-fashioned 'Share my library' way
[1], not the Home Sharing style shared); if, as I say, you want to access
shared libraries, you have to use Remote.app; you can't do this from the
Apple TV interface.

And while I still have rant mode switched on, what the fsck is the point of a
Playlist if I can't play it? It seems I have to add each track individually
to 'Up Next". Unless I want to Shuffle them, which, with the movements of a
Beethoven symphony, I oddly don't.

And why does the Pause button take over a minute to take effect when I use
Remote.app on the iPhone, but works perfectly well on the iPad.

And why... ah, soddit. I give up.

MST

[1] Which, incidentally, lets me choose what I share and whether it's
password-protected or not. Home Sharing not only insists on sharing *all* my
iTunes including porno videos, but uses stills from them to decorate its main
screen when I'm least expecting it. (A bit like Ray Bradbury's short story
'Jizzle', for anyone who knows it.)

[Calum]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Ah, but then it only lets you access your own iTunes. If you want to access
shared libraries (that's 'shared' in the old-fashioned 'Share my library' way
[1], not the Home Sharing style shared); if, as I say, you want to access
shared libraries, you have to use Remote.app; you can't do this from the
Apple TV interface.

Hmm, you definitely used to be able to, haven't tried in a while since I
started using Home Sharing instead though.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
That's where the AppleTV's own UI comes in, surely? It's connected to
your iTunes...

Also you need Remote.app and Home Sharing if you want to play something
simultaneously on your Apple TV and your computer.

MST

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

No, you can use the remote app to tell the Mac to play the video on
the Apple TV. Home sharing is convient for me since it means the
AppleTV behaves like a jukebox with the whole family's music on it.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by Martin S Taylor
Provided you're sitting in front of the Mac. If you're sitting in the lounge
in front of the TV, and you want to watch a movie you have on iTunes, what
then? I think you need Remote.app and Home Sharing.

No, you can use the remote app to tell the Mac to play the video on
the Apple TV. Home sharing is convient for me since it means the
AppleTV behaves like a jukebox with the whole family's music on it

Yes, as long as the movie is in your own iTunes library. If it's shared from
someone else (who is a little cagey about sharing *all* their movies, so
doesn't use Home Sharing) you need Remote.app

(Granted, it isn't that likely that you want to do this.)

But the real power of Remote.app comes when I want to play the same music
simultaneously on several computers. And to do this I have to have Home
Sharing enabled, which means I have to share *all* my iTunes material with
*everyone* who has Home Sharing enabled.

MST

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
But the real power of Remote.app comes when I want to play the same music
simultaneously on several computers. And to do this I have to have Home
Sharing enabled, which means I have to share *all* my iTunes material with
*everyone* who has Home Sharing enabled.

Does "HomeSharing" allow a mac/PC running iTunes to act as a remote
"speaker"? I thought you pull from a "HomeSharing" server, it doesn't
push to you. So in the scenario you describe, you could just use
iTunes sharing to make your music available on the other Macs.

Or am I missing something?

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by Martin S Taylor
But the real power of Remote.app comes when I want to play the same music
simultaneously on several computers. And to do this I have to have Home
Sharing enabled, which means I have to share *all* my iTunes material with
*everyone* who has Home Sharing enabled.

Does "HomeSharing" allow a mac/PC running iTunes to act as a remote
"speaker"? I thought you pull from a "HomeSharing" server, it doesn't
push to you.

I'm not sure what you mean. When I use HomeSharing it's actually quite hard
to discover the source of the music I'm listening to.

Post by Sak Wathanasin
So in the scenario you describe, you could just use
iTunes sharing to make your music available on the other Macs.

The point is that if HomeSharing is enabled, I can make every computer in the
house - and my TV, assuming it's switched on - play a given piece of music;
they play it not only simultaneously but in sync, so that I can wander from
room to room and hear the same continuous thread of music.

If I'm in front of my computer, I can initiate this from iTunes (assuming
HomeSharing is already set up everywhere). If I'm in front of the TV, I need
Remote.app (and HomeSharing on the iDevice) to do it.

Or have I got it wrong?

MST

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
The point is that if HomeSharing is enabled, I can make every computer in the
house - and my TV, assuming it's switched on - play a given piece of music;
they play it not only simultaneously but in sync, so that I can wander from
room to room and hear the same continuous thread of music.

It does? I don't recall seeing a cmd or option that lets you play a
track on all connected systems, but I'll have another look. I thought
that what home-sharing did over "ordinary" library sharing was that it
allowed you to download purchased songs & apps from the home-share on
the remote iTunes (and thence to an iDevice); well up to 5 sharers
anyway.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by Martin S Taylor
The point is that if HomeSharing is enabled, I can make every computer in the
house - and my TV, assuming it's switched on - play a given piece of music;
they play it not only simultaneously but in sync, so that I can wander from
room to room and hear the same continuous thread of music.

It does? I don't recall seeing a cmd or option that lets you play a
track on all connected systems, but I'll have another look.

In iTunes, just to the right of the volume control there's a rectangle with a
black triangle sticking through its base (what *are* these symbols supposed
to represent?). Click on that.

Post by Sak Wathanasin
I thought
that what home-sharing did over "ordinary" library sharing was that it
allowed you to download purchased songs & apps from the home-share on
the remote iTunes (and thence to an iDevice); well up to 5 sharers
anyway.

Yes, it does that too, I believe, though I've never had cause to try it.

But it's a nuisance that it allows you do share *all* your iTunes library,
for reasons I've outlined elsewhere in this thread.

MST

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
In iTunes, just to the right of the volume control there's a rectangle with a
black triangle sticking through its base (what *are* these symbols supposed
to represent?). Click on that.

That's the "AirPlay" icon - it's enabled if you have any AirPlay-
enabled device (like your AppleTV) on your network. You can also
install something like AirFoil, which will enable a Mac to act as an
AirPlay remote speaker (ie be capable of receiving an AirPlay
stream).

As far as I know, it's got nothing to do with Home Sharing. I can play
to any AirPlay device or all devices from (eg) my MBP's iTunes, which
no sharing (home or otherwise) enabled. Moreover, it does not "see"
the Mac Mini, which does have HS enabled, as a target device. It is,
however, running Leopard, so this may be something Apple have added in
Lion or ML. (Alas my mini won't be able to run Lion, so not easy to
test.)

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 05:36:55 -0800 (PST), Sak Wathanasin

Post by Sak Wathanasin
As far as I know, it's got nothing to do with Home Sharing. I can play
to any AirPlay device or all devices from (eg) my MBP's iTunes, which
no sharing (home or otherwise) enabled. Moreover, it does not "see"
the Mac Mini, which does have HS enabled, as a target device. It is,
however, running Leopard, so this may be something Apple have added in
Lion or ML. (Alas my mini won't be able to run Lion, so not easy to
test.)

I commend AirServer - I have it on my 10.6 Mini-that-does-the-TV. It's
better than the Mountain Lion built in one because it automatically
goes fullscreen.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by Martin S Taylor
In iTunes, just to the right of the volume control there's a rectangle with a
black triangle sticking through its base (what *are* these symbols supposed
to represent?). Click on that.

That's the "AirPlay" icon - it's enabled if you have any AirPlay-
enabled device (like your AppleTV) on your network.

Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:55:25 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by Martin S Taylor
In iTunes, just to the right of the volume control there's a rectangle with a
black triangle sticking through its base (what *are* these symbols supposed
to represent?). Click on that.

That's the "AirPlay" icon - it's enabled if you have any AirPlay-
enabled device (like your AppleTV) on your network.

Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

HomeSharing is independent of Airplay, I don't have any homesharing at
all and airplay just works.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

HomeSharing is independent of Airplay, I don't have any homesharing at
all and airplay just works.

I'm not sure it's worth all this thread, but I'm still confused.

I want a song, which is on my computer's iTunes, to play synchronously on my
computer and my Apple TV. I want to make this happen using my iPhone, and
without going near my computer or my TV.

I can do this by controlling AirPlay from my iPhone using Remote.app, but
only if HomeSharing is turned on. I don't think I can if HomeSharing is
turned off.

There.

MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Wed, 13 Feb 2013 09:40:55 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

HomeSharing is independent of Airplay, I don't have any homesharing at
all and airplay just works.

I'm not sure it's worth all this thread, but I'm still confused.
I want a song, which is on my computer's iTunes, to play synchronously on my
computer and my Apple TV. I want to make this happen using my iPhone, and
without going near my computer or my TV.
I can do this by controlling AirPlay from my iPhone using Remote.app, but
only if HomeSharing is turned on. I don't think I can if HomeSharing is
turned off.
There.

I have just done that, with homesharing turned off.

Which surprised me a little - I had expected that Remote needs
homesharing, but it doesn't: In settings in Remote is an "add an
iTunes library" for iTuneses without homesharing enabled. I think this
might be fairly newish.

Airplay certainly doesn't need homesharing.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
Which surprised me a little - I had expected that Remote needs
homesharing, but it doesn't: In settings in Remote is an "add an
iTunes library" for iTuneses without homesharing enabled. I think this
might be fairly newish.

I think it's always been there - it's how you add different servers
you want to control.

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
Airplay certainly doesn't need homesharing.

I'm in violent agreement.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
I want a song, which is on my computer's iTunes, to play synchronously on my
computer and my Apple TV. I want to make this happen using my iPhone, and
without going near my computer or my TV.
I can do this by controlling AirPlay from my iPhone using Remote.app, but
only if HomeSharing is turned on. I don't think I can if HomeSharing is
turned off.
There.

I have just done that, with homesharing turned off.
Which surprised me a little - I had expected that Remote needs
homesharing, but it doesn't: In settings in Remote is an "add an
iTunes library" for iTuneses without homesharing enabled. I think this
might be fairly newish.
Airplay certainly doesn't need homesharing.

Yep, I was wrong. I think I was confused because the appearance of Remote.app
and Music.app are so similar, yet the way they work is so different.

Try clicking on a Playlist, for instance, then tap on the first song in the
list. In Music.app it plays the entire playlist; in Remote.app it plays the
first song only. Is there a way to get Remote.app to play an entire playlist?
MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:19:39 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor
I think I was confused because the appearance of Remote.app
and Music.app are so similar, yet the way they work is so different.
Try clicking on a Playlist, for instance, then tap on the first song in the
list. In Music.app it plays the entire playlist; in Remote.app it plays the
first song only. Is there a way to get Remote.app to play an entire playlist?

It does play the whole list here. Bemusing!

Cheers - Jaimie

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
in Remote.app it plays the
first song only. Is there a way to get Remote.app to play an entire playlist?

It does play the whole list here. Bemusing!

Oh FFS! How? Why??

In Remote.app you go to Playlists. This displays all the playlists on your
Mac, in your shared iTunes Library. What do you do then? Tap on a playlist?
Hold it down?

For me, tapping on a playlist displays its contents; holding a finger against
the playlist produces a dialog box: "Play Next"; "Add to Up Next"; or
"Cancel".

The first two take me to the "Up Next" list, which is empty. "Cancel" does
indeed cancel the operation.

MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:17:28 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
in Remote.app it plays the
first song only. Is there a way to get Remote.app to play an entire playlist?

It does play the whole list here. Bemusing!

Oh FFS! How? Why??
In Remote.app you go to Playlists. This displays all the playlists on your
Mac, in your shared iTunes Library. What do you do then? Tap on a playlist?
Hold it down?
For me, tapping on a playlist displays its contents;

At this point I tapped on the first song and it starts playing on the
Mac (and maybe other devices simultaneously). Then it carries on
throught the playlist.

Post by Martin S Taylor
holding a finger against
the playlist produces a dialog box: "Play Next"; "Add to Up Next"; or
"Cancel".

So it does! Handy. Don't do that though if you want the playlist to
play.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
In Remote.app you go to Playlists. This displays all the playlists on your
Mac, in your shared iTunes Library. What do you do then? Tap on a playlist?
Hold it down?
For me, tapping on a playlist displays its contents;

At this point I tapped on the first song and it starts playing on the
Mac (and maybe other devices simultaneously). Then it carries on
throught the playlist.

Aha! This only works if the songs are 'ticked' in iTunes on the Mac. If
they're not, then they appear in pale grey on Remote.app, and it stops after
tune 1.

And clicking "Shuffle" gives "original playlist not found".

Now, how can I tick iTunes songs from Remote.app?

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
holding a finger against
the playlist produces a dialog box: "Play Next"; "Add to Up Next"; or
"Cancel".

So it does! Handy. Don't do that though if you want the playlist to
play.

This also doesn't work if the songs are unticked on the Mac.

MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:13:40 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
In Remote.app you go to Playlists. This displays all the playlists on your
Mac, in your shared iTunes Library. What do you do then? Tap on a playlist?
Hold it down?
For me, tapping on a playlist displays its contents;

At this point I tapped on the first song and it starts playing on the
Mac (and maybe other devices simultaneously). Then it carries on
throught the playlist.

Aha! This only works if the songs are 'ticked' in iTunes on the Mac. If
they're not, then they appear in pale grey on Remote.app, and it stops after
tune 1.

Ooooh. All my songs are ticked, I only untick radio shows and the
like.

Perhaps whatever function you tick for could be handled by a playlist
instead? Stick all of your currently ticked (or unticked) tracks into
a playlist, then tick everything, use the playlist to random-play
from.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Aha! This only works if the songs are 'ticked' in iTunes on the Mac. If
they're not, then they appear in pale grey on Remote.app, and it stops after
tune 1.

Ooooh. All my songs are ticked, I only untick radio shows and the
like.
Perhaps whatever function you tick for could be handled by a playlist
instead? Stick all of your currently ticked (or unticked) tracks into
a playlist, then tick everything, use the playlist to random-play
from.

Nah, I think the way to do it is to keep all my songs ticked. Since it works
like that, I don't really see the point of this ticked-unticked thing.

MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 17:07:25 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Aha! This only works if the songs are 'ticked' in iTunes on the Mac. If
they're not, then they appear in pale grey on Remote.app, and it stops after
tune 1.

Ooooh. All my songs are ticked, I only untick radio shows and the
like.
Perhaps whatever function you tick for could be handled by a playlist
instead? Stick all of your currently ticked (or unticked) tracks into
a playlist, then tick everything, use the playlist to random-play
from.

Nah, I think the way to do it is to keep all my songs ticked. Since it works
like that, I don't really see the point of this ticked-unticked thing.

Indeed! I was assuming you had some ulterior (and possibly nefarious)
motive for unticking things, in which case you might need a workaround
to continue with it.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Nah, I think the way to do it is to keep all my songs ticked. Since it works
like that, I don't really see the point of this ticked-unticked thing.

Indeed! I was assuming you had some ulterior (and possibly nefarious)
motive for unticking things, in which case you might need a workaround
to continue with it.

I know this is an Airplay thread, but has anyone else noticed in Home
Sharing that the only songs shared are those selected on the source
machine's iTunes. e.g. If I select Thelonious Monk on my Pro's iTunes,
then that's all the Macbook can see of my Pro's iTunes Library?

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

Post by Elliott Roper

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Nah, I think the way to do it is to keep all my songs ticked. Since it works
like that, I don't really see the point of this ticked-unticked thing.

Indeed! I was assuming you had some ulterior (and possibly nefarious)
motive for unticking things, in which case you might need a workaround
to continue with it.

I know this is an Airplay thread, but has anyone else noticed in Home
Sharing that the only songs shared are those selected on the source
machine's iTunes. e.g. If I select Thelonious Monk on my Pro's iTunes,
then that's all the Macbook can see of my Pro's iTunes Library?

Nope.

I just turned homesharing on on my iMac, and then enabled it on mrs'
Air too - and it can see the whole 13929 tracks (blimey).

Am I just the one lucky bastard whose iTunes actually works as
designed? (Apart from measuring iOS devices content, obv! That never
works)

Cheers - Jaimie

[Elliott Roper]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Elliott Roper
I know this is an Airplay thread, but has anyone else noticed in Home
Sharing that the only songs shared are those selected on the source
machine's iTunes. e.g. If I select Thelonious Monk on my Pro's iTunes,
then that's all the Macbook can see of my Pro's iTunes Library?

Nope.
I just turned homesharing on on my iMac, and then enabled it on mrs'
Air too - and it can see the whole 13929 tracks (blimey).
Am I just the one lucky bastard whose iTunes actually works as
designed? (Apart from measuring iOS devices content, obv! That never
works)

Hmm. I'll need to look further. I thought it was sub-optimal.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Elliott Roper
I know this is an Airplay thread, but has anyone else noticed in Home
Sharing that the only songs shared are those selected on the source
machine's iTunes. e.g. If I select Thelonious Monk on my Pro's iTunes,
then that's all the Macbook can see of my Pro's iTunes Library?

Nope.
I just turned homesharing on on my iMac, and then enabled it on mrs'
Air too - and it can see the whole 13929 tracks (blimey).
Am I just the one lucky bastard whose iTunes actually works as
designed?

That's the *reason* I don't want to turn HomeSharing on! I have videos in
iTunes I don't want people to see, and with HomeSharing turned on, not only
can anyone access them from my TV set, but if I'm really careless stills from
them appear on the screensaver.

MST

[Gwynne Harper]

Post by Martin S Taylor
That's the *reason* I don't want to turn HomeSharing on! I have videos in
iTunes I don't want people to see, and with HomeSharing turned on, not only
can anyone access them from my TV set, but if I'm really careless stills from
them appear on the screensaver.

Sharing prefs -> Share selected playlists solves this in one.


Gwynne

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Gwynne Harper

Post by Martin S Taylor
That's the *reason* I don't want to turn HomeSharing on! I have videos in
iTunes I don't want people to see, and with HomeSharing turned on, not only
can anyone access them from my TV set, but if I'm really careless stills from
them appear on the screensaver.

Sharing prefs -> Share selected playlists solves this in one.

Sadly it doesn't. That's the point. With Home Sharing on anyone with access
to the Apple TV can see all my movies, all my songs.

MST

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh
I just turned homesharing on on my iMac, and then enabled it on mrs'
Air too - and it can see the whole 13929 tracks (blimey).

No, in a playlist - on the server Mac, go to, eg, "recently added" or
"recently played" and select an album or a few tracks. Now go to the
client and select the same playlist. It will say something like "100
songs" in the playlist, but only show you the ones that were selected
on the server. You have to go back to the server and either select
everything or unselect eevrything to see all the tracks on the client.
It's bloody annoying - I have 13000+ tracks as well, and I tend to use
the "recently added" playlist on the AppleTV to find new additions,
only to find that it'll only show me the last CD I just played on the
Mac ('cos I used "recently added" there to find the new CD.)

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Elliott Roper
I know this is an Airplay thread, but has anyone else noticed in Home
Sharing that the only songs shared are those selected on the source
machine's iTunes. e.g. If I select Thelonious Monk on my Pro's iTunes,
then that's all the Macbook can see of my Pro's iTunes Library?

Yes, this is an iTunes 11 bug - worked as you'd expect in iTunes 10.x
(ie entire playlist shared regardless of whatever was selected on the
server Mac).

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Nah, I think the way to do it is to keep all my songs ticked. Since it works
like that, I don't really see the point of this ticked-unticked thing.

Indeed! I was assuming you had some ulterior (and possibly nefarious)
motive for unticking things

No, there just didn't seem to be any point in ticking them. I would often
feel like playing just one track when sat at my computer, and it irritated me
the way iTunes would automatically continue by playing the next (ticked)
track or (irritatingly) Voice Memo.

On which topic, has anyone else found a way to stop iPhone Voice Memos
syncing onto the iTunes library?

(Yes, I know that there's an option in iTunes to turn it off, but that
doesn't work.)

MST

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
On which topic, has anyone else found a way to stop iPhone Voice Memos
syncing onto the iTunes library?

Er, untick the "include voice memos" on the "sync Music" tab?

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
holding a finger against
the playlist produces a dialog box: "Play Next"; "Add to Up Next"; or
"Cancel".

So it does! Handy. Don't do that though if you want the playlist to
play.

And it doesn't work if the Playlist is contained within a folder of
playlists. Can't iTunes get *anything* right?

MST

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:28:29 +0000, Martin S Taylor

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
holding a finger against
the playlist produces a dialog box: "Play Next"; "Add to Up Next"; or
"Cancel".

So it does! Handy. Don't do that though if you want the playlist to
play.

And it doesn't work if the Playlist is contained within a folder of
playlists. Can't iTunes get *anything* right?

I didn't know you could nest playlists. Mind you, I barely use them
anyway.

Cheers - Jaimie

[Woody]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
holding a finger against
the playlist produces a dialog box: "Play Next"; "Add to Up Next"; or
"Cancel".

So it does! Handy. Don't do that though if you want the playlist to
play.

And it doesn't work if the Playlist is contained within a folder of
playlists. Can't iTunes get *anything* right?

I didn't know you could do that anyway. what is the purpose of that?

From my point of view iTunes gets a lot of things right, i guess it
depends on if it does the things you want it to do.

[Martin S Taylor]

Post by Woody

Post by Martin S Taylor
And it doesn't work if the Playlist is contained within a folder of
playlists. Can't iTunes get *anything* right?

I didn't know you could do that anyway. what is the purpose of that?

I use it because I have a *lot* of playlists.

(A classical music album often contains several works, each divided into
movements. The CD (and therefore iTunes) doesn't separate the tracks into
works. So if I want to listen to eg. the four movements of Beethoven 1
wiithout automatically going on to Beethoven 2, the easiest way is to put
each symphony on a separate playlist.

But then I have so many playlists that it's easiest to put them all in one
folder called "Beethoven Symphonies")

Post by Woody
From my point of view iTunes gets a lot of things right,

There are so many things it tries to do that it's bound to get quite a lot of
them right.

MST

[Gwynne Harper]

Post by Martin S Taylor
But then I have so many playlists that it's easiest to put them all in one
folder called "Beethoven Symphonies")

It is pretty poor with Classical music, I have to say, not helped by
some bizarre imports from Gracenote!

I achieve the same thing via a differet technique - I use the 'grouping'
field when entering track infromation, then make that a visible column
in list view. I quite like your way of doing it - I'll have to
experiment...


Gwynne

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
I can do this by controlling AirPlay from my iPhone using Remote.app, but
only if HomeSharing is turned on. I don't think I can if HomeSharing is
turned off.

Just turn it off and try it (on Mac or AppleTV or both). Certainly
works here, but I haven't moved to Lion+. If this is something they've
done to lion/ML, I'm not upgrading ever (but I'd be very surprised if
this was the case).

[Woody]

Post by Martin S Taylor

Post by Jaimie Vandenbergh

Post by Martin S Taylor
Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

HomeSharing is independent of Airplay, I don't have any homesharing at
all and airplay just works.

I'm not sure it's worth all this thread

There are worse around :)

[Sak Wathanasin]

Post by Martin S Taylor
Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

They are independent features: eg it works with an Airport Express,
which has no home sharing or other "smarts" (just acts as a remote
"speaker"). I suspect the confusion is because in Lion/ML, Apple may
have combined these features in iTunes (ie enable AirPlay server if H-
S is on). I'd have to install Lion/ML to find out.

However, you can install AiRFoil or (as Jamie wrote) AirServer if you
don't want to be tied to H-S. You can certainly turn off H-S on the
AppleTV and it'll just act as a receiver. You don't get to browse your
music collection on the AppleTV, of course - you'd have to use the
"Remote" app or go to the Mac.

[Elliott Roper]

In article

Post by Sak Wathanasin

Post by Martin S Taylor
Ah, okay. But to access Airplay using your iOS device, I think you need
HomeSharing turned on everywhere.

They are independent features: eg it works with an Airport Express,
which has no home sharing or other "smarts" (just acts as a remote
"speaker"). I suspect the confusion is because in Lion/ML, Apple may
have combined these features in iTunes (ie enable AirPlay server if H-
S is on). I'd have to install Lion/ML to find out.
However, you can install AiRFoil or (as Jamie wrote) AirServer if you
don't want to be tied to H-S. You can certainly turn off H-S on the
AppleTV and it'll just act as a receiver. You don't get to browse your
music collection on the AppleTV, of course - you'd have to use the
"Remote" app or go to the Mac.

While my internet was down for a couple of days last week, I noticed
that Home Sharing did not share. I guess the little sniveler wants to
phone home to limit with whom you share.