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Introducing Airfoil Speakers Touch!
Posted By Paul Kafasis on April 17th, 2009
Using our custom Airfoil Speakers software in conjunction with Airfoil, you can already turn any computer into an AirPort Express audio receiver. You can then send audio from your Mac or PC to any other Mac, PC, or Linux computer on your local network, in addition to sending audio to AirPort Express and AppleTV hardware.
Today, we’re happy to welcome a new addition to the Airfoil Speakers family, with the immediate availability of Airfoil Speakers Touch. Using Airfoil Speakers Touch alongside Airfoil for Mac or Airfoil for Windows, you can now send audio from your computer to your iPhone or iPod Touch on the local network. It’s a mobile audio receiver, right in your pocket!
Of course, we’ve also got updates to both Airfoil for Mac (now at version 3.3) and Airfoil for Windows (now at version 2.7), to provide full compatibility with Airfoil Speakers Touch. Both of these are free updates for registered owners, and they both bring many minor bug fixes on top of Airfoil Speakers Touch support, so get them now!
Finally, for users of our unsupported, but still very cool, Airfoil Speakers for Linux, be sure to update to version 2.7. This update fixes several issues with crashes on Ubuntu.
So, those are our Airfoil updates. If you’re new to wireless home audio, you can download free trials of Airfoil for Mac and Airfoil for Windows, or visit the Airfoil page for more information. All users, new and old, should be sure to check out all our versions of Airfoil Speakers, including the brand-new Airfoil Speakers Touch, to send audio to computers and devices throughout your home!
Update: For those wondering about Airfoil for iPhone, or Airfoil Remote for iPhone, please see this post. The short version is that much as we’d like it, it’s not at all feasible at this time.
DjoMac says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:01 amHi,
That’s pretty cool, but the usefull stuf should be to send music from my iPhone to AirPort Express. Is it in your pipe ?
Good job anyway ;)
Paul Kafasis says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:06 amDjoMac, please see this in-depth post. Airfoil for the iPhone just is not feasible with the current limitations of the OS.
We think this is quite useful on its own.
Joshua says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:13 amThanks for such a great app!
I’ve been checking daily, as this will greatly improve my daily internet radio listening!
Ton says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:14 amPaul, the iTunes link leads to Radioshift Touch instead of Airfoil Speakers Touch. Yeah, I know, you want to sell stuff ;-)
Joachim Bengtsson says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:17 amFantastic! Oh, how I’ve been waiting for this :) Thank you!
matt says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:22 amThank you!!! I’ve been waiting for this app since I got my iPhone. I just downloaded it and it works great at work, can’t wait to try it at home. I would have definitely have paid for it, but thanks for the free add on to airfoil!
Paul Kafasis says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:26 amTon, check again, we’ve fixed a server issue. Should be fine.
Apoorv Khatreja says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:35 amWhoa, I really think this is amazing! And the app is for free too, nice!
(BTW, is there an Airfoil app for the iPod Touch/iPhone? Cause I would love the functionality to stream music directly to the speakers connected to my desktop from my iPod)
And also, I would ask you to advise me on which iPod to go for – http://rutsum.com/the-ipod-nano-classic-or-touch-or-none
I was earlier concerned about the limited storage space on the iPod Touch, but if I can stream music from my desktop/MacBook, I guess that would go into the ‘Pros’ list for the iPod Touch,
Ton says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:35 amPaul, much better. Is a-fine now.
Tim de Ville says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:55 amIm niot sure when I would use an application like this. I would have to go to my computer, select a stream, and start it playing to the remote speakers. Every time I want to change the radio station, or last.fm or whatever, i would need to go back to the computer to do anything.
Shouldnt the iPhone be a remote rather than a speaker? The Airport express is cheap enough, and is cool with the Remote.app for a Sonos/Dqeezebox like experience, but lacks teh ability to play other sources such as Last.FM, streaming BBC radio etc. We need an app to fill this space, and I know that Airfoil could do it.
How I see it happening is the desktop app would have support for a number of different souces, just like Sonos and Logitech do. On the desktop pick the 5 selected sources you want into the sources list, and these will then show as on the iPhone app. With the iPhone app you then could select Last.FM from the list, select what speakers around the home you want to play out of, then pick a Last.fm station to listen too.
At the moment im looking at using an application called iPeng that does just this, but for the Squeezebox system. I can install software squeezeboxes on computers, and buy hardware where i dont want a computer. I then can select BBC radio, iTunes music, or Last.fm and stream to different speakers around the home. Trouble is, the Squeezeboxes are twice the price of an airport express, to do the same thing.
So, airfoil is cool, but I would want it as a controller rather than speaker. I dont care about streaming from the iPone because it would kill battery life and be limited, even if it was possible, but i have a computer thats on with Airfoil, already has iTunes, Last.FM and can play BBC radio. I just want to control Airfoil from my phone.
Phil Bridges says:
April 17th, 2009 at 11:39 amWords fail me, this is just such a USEFUL app!!!! I have a radio scanner hooked up to my Mac and at last I can re-broadcast the audio to any location in the house or garden and in a secure fashion. I’d have been happy to buy $20 for this, thanks so much Paul!
Aaron says:
April 17th, 2009 at 1:41 pmBeen waiting for this!! Just saved me $100 from buying (another) Airport Express!!!! Between my Apple TV, Air Port Express, my iPod Touch and my iPhone, my house is covered in audio.
Thank you for making this!!!!!!!
Marco Arment says:
April 17th, 2009 at 2:02 pmI’ve been hoping for this for a long time so I can temporarily stream audio to rooms where I can’t practically run wires (without buying expensive dedicated wireless audio transmitters or an Airport Express).
Great work.
Alex Fajkowski says:
April 17th, 2009 at 2:46 pmNICE!! And it’s free! Thanks…Very slick, guys.
spungee says:
April 17th, 2009 at 3:15 pmthis is absolutely fantastic (and i *never* use the words ‘absolutely’ or ‘fantastic’ – *never*)! many thanks for this application; i was thinking about how useful this would be just a few days ago, and BAM! there it is. word.
spungee says:
April 17th, 2009 at 3:18 pmoh, and one quick note – i would have happily paid for this application. i very much appreciate your hard work on the various pieces of airfoil. nice going, folks; well done!
William says:
April 17th, 2009 at 4:17 pmThank you, thank you, thank you. I can now stream my beloved CBC to my Touch out in the yard!!!!
Brad says:
April 17th, 2009 at 5:06 pmWell done. Thank you for this!
Kevin says:
April 17th, 2009 at 5:25 pmYou guys do indeed have great products. Keep up the good work.
I will also join the club of wanting a remote app for Airfoil. Your view seems to be that it’s not worth it because of the limited functionality. I disagree. Even if it only allowed volume adjustment and “active” speaker toggle, it would be very useful. If it could later be enhanced, I have no doubt you guys would do it. But I would certainly welcome a simple, bare-bones remote app.
Quentin Carnicelli says:
April 17th, 2009 at 7:35 pmKevin – I think we are actually pretty open to the idea of Remote Control features in the future. But there are a number of things we’re still trying to ponder out.
Exactly what features it would have, and how to present them to the user.
What applications are people looking to remote control? We can make guesses, but here we’d really need actual user feedback. Things like iTunes are easy, things like Last.fm-inside-Safari, pretty much impossible.
And the big concern: If Apple adds true background application support in the future, any work we do on a Remote Control feature will be more or less a waste.
Ryan says:
April 17th, 2009 at 9:59 pmI think even a feature to have Airfoil auto-connect to an iPhone speaker would get me about 99% of the way there, as I could then switch to Apple’s own Remote app to control playback, then switch back to Airfoil Speakers Touch.
Alan Rothberg says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:37 pmThanks guys, this is great! This is why I own several of your products – you never stop improving them. Thanks also for making it free, that’s just icing on the cake.
Chris says:
April 17th, 2009 at 10:46 pmRyan – As far as iTunes control, you can go into the Airfoil preferences on your computer and tell Airfoil to automatically transmit to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Once that’s done you can utilize the Remote app that Apple released like you stated to change the songs within iTunes, and then relaunch the Airfoil Speakers app and it will then automatically connect.
Obviously you miss the first like 3 or 4 seconds of the song, but whatever.
Anyway, this program is awesome. Thanks guys!
Logan says:
April 19th, 2009 at 2:38 pmGreat app but using it with my itunes it skipping every 2 mins or so. Using an ipod touch, macbook pro and a time capsule. Even when using a computer to computer network I’m still having the same problems.
Matt says:
April 19th, 2009 at 10:53 pmThis might be a completely stupid but i know the new iphone update supports AD2P so couldnt it be possible to make a program for the mac that acts like a bluetooth speaker? Then you could select that app on airfoil and you would be playing your music from your iphone over the airport express.
sibe jan says:
April 20th, 2009 at 12:58 amhmmm – doesn’t work for me (iPod touch 2nd gen.) when i connect my headphone to my touch, and stream from my macbook, touch tells me he is transmitting, but my earphones don’t give any sound…
tcb says:
April 20th, 2009 at 8:27 amThis is a great app. Works great for me! I can stream to AppleTV, Airport Express, Other Macs, and now iPhone. Thanks for such a great app.
PS/ Please take all the criticism/suggestions with a grain of salt. Some of these commentors will never be satisfied. They are already complaining about features they would like to see in the app. It has only been out for a few days. Theyre will be future versions with more functionality, be happy with the features provided. This is an awesome app, and you cant beat the price!
olivier says:
April 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pmHello, thank you for this great app!
A little off topic but I have a feature request : it would be awesome if Airfoil speaker can be decteted as an Airport Express by iTunes and so by the iPhone & iPod Touch app “Remote”. Like that, I can choose to which speaker in my house is sended iTunes music directly from my iPhone via Remote.
Thank you!
Paul Kafasis says:
April 20th, 2009 at 7:43 pmApoorv Khatreja: Only the Touch can run apps, so that’s something to consider.
As for Airfoil on the iPhone, please see this in-depth post
Tim de Ville: By that same logic, when would you ever use an AirPort Express, or stream audio at all? Airfoil Speakers Touch lets you send audio to your iPhone – how you use it is up to you, but as you can see, plenty of people are excited. The AirPort Express is great, but it’s not portable – you can’t wander the house with it in your pocket.
As for an Airfoil remote, that’s a very different set of functionality from Airfoil Speakers. It’s something to consider, but it’s not the focus here, currently.
Phil Bridges, Aaron, Marco Arment, Alex Fajkowski, spungee, William, Brad, Kevin, Alan Rothberg, tcb: Enjoy, tell your friends, and leave a positive review in the App Store!
Logan, sibe jan: Get in touch with us directly for support, and we’ll go from there.
Matt: Airfoil works with AirTunes devices – a BlueTooth device wouldn’t fit with that at all. As for sending from the iPhone to your Mac, via BlueTooth, the app still doesn’t have the needed access to audio.
olivier: Unfortunately, Airfoil Speakers won’t be recognized by iTunes, and that’s on Apple.
That said, you can certainly use all this with iTunes. Set iTunes as your source in Airfoil, then transmit to Airfoil Speakers Touch. With the “Automatically transmit to” preference in Airfoil, you can have audio sent any time Airfoil Speakers Touch launches.
Steve says:
April 21st, 2009 at 8:41 pmThank you for the Airfoil application. I use it almost every day to stream my Live365 Radio application to my Apple TV and/or Airport Express. It will be great to be able to stream to my Touch as well. As far as remote capability, I can see where a simple feature would be useful. It would be handy if the Airfoil Speakers Touch program could tell the Airfoil application (on the computer) to stop transmitting and set all the devices back to available status. I listen to music on the first and second floors of my home, and the computer is in the basement. If I am leaving the house, or if I am nodding off in bed, it would be helpful to stop Airfoil remotely. Then the computer would go to sleep on its own due to the Energy Saver settings. Again, that is just something to put on a wish list. Please keep up the great work!
Steve says:
April 21st, 2009 at 10:57 pmOkay, scratch that last idea. Setting all the output devices in Airfoil back to “Available” does not stop the Live365 player from playing. So the Mac will stay awake and stream the music indefinitely. I will just keep using the iTunes Timer widget to put the computer to sleep after a designated period of time. But at least I can stream right to the Touch now. :)