Apple's Remote App — Music from your Mac, with your phone!

There's certainly a lot of awesome options for playing music remotely, between Bluetooth speakers, Sonos equipment, the Airport Express, and even stereo receivers getting in on the game.

There is a certain group of us, however, with unique setups in our homes. Back in university for example, I had one set of computer speakers on my desk that was easily loud enough to fill my dorm room. And on the other end, you might be enough of a movie buff to have an Apple TV, or even a dedicated Mac mini serving up your favourite movies to your HDTV and surround sound setup.

In these cases you often end up with either a fantastically complex remote that has to be manually programmed by wizards from Mars, or, you have to undergo the painful torture of getting up and walking over to your Mac to change the song. And you don't even get the hipster credit you would from flipping an LP.

There's a little-known, free and official Apple app that solves this problem, turning your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into a de facto remote you're probably already carrying around. Take a look on the App Store for the Remote app.

This nifty tool gives you two options. First, you can use it to replace the Apple Remote that comes with your Apple TV. I vastly prefer this if I ever need to enter something like my Netflix email and password, since the app gives you a full keyboard instead of the hunt-and-peck interface of the physical remote. In the other mode, it allows you to connect to iTunes libraries that have Home Sharing enabled, like one on a Mac that's connected to speakers.

There used to be an even cooler feature where you could vote on the next song to play from a friend's iTunes library while at a party, sadly defunct now, but I digress. The Remote app is well worth checking out regardless, and if you have any questions or curiosity about your home audio setup, drop us a line anytime!