For everyone that knows me, I love technology. For those of you who don't know, I love technology. It's true. We can do things today that weren't even imaginable 15 years ago. And nowhere is more greatly apparent, than in our mobile phones.
I own an iPhone. Now Apple fanboy I am not, but this post isn't about the merits of one smart phone platform or another. In fact, many of my posts will be about getting around the arbitrary restrictions Apple sets. That said, I happen to think the iPhone is one of the most amazing and slick pieces of tech we've got around today. And since I like to tinker, you could say that I haven't left well enough alone. Here's one thing I've done with my phone:
Create a whole house music system
Now, if you own an iPhone, you probably use iTunes...maybe against your will. This utter monstrosity, this utter offender of memory (on my system, it's using 162MB of memory, plus 4MB for AppleMobileDeviceHelper, and another 4MB for iTunesHelper...I swear, has there ever been a program in history that needs more help than this?) is an annoying example of trying to cram Mac design onto everything. But still, you might as well get some use out of it.
The Apple Airport Express. This 99 dollar box has something of an identity crisis. It can act as an access point, and a USB print server, although it never manages to inspire on either of those fronts. Where this blindingly white square shines is in the 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. You either run a cable to some speakers or your audio receiver, have it join your wireless network, and then, WHAM, you now have a little white box connected to your audio system.
But in addition to this fancy shiny plastic thing now umbilicalled right between your sound machine, the next time you fire up (simmer up?) iTunes, you'll notice (or maybe you won't, Apple has a ridiculous habit of changing one tiny thing and excepting you to notice) that there is now a selection box with a speaker icon that says "My Computer" and selecting it now offers you a choice between the speakers on your computer, and the newly attached Airport Express. If you select the Airport express, iTunes is now playing through whatever you've connected. Neat huh?
So great, you've now got an Airport Express connected to your living room Audio system for parties, and connected to a pair of spare computer speakers in the bathroom (singing in the shower is amazing with musical accompaniment) and one for the balcony too, for good measure. You've no doubt figured out that you can select multiple speakers and distribute music through the whole house at once. Super, but all you've really got is a jukebox that you have to keep plopping down at your computer to use.
Enter your iPhone. Thanks to a neat little free Apple app called...get this, "Remote" that you can get on the App Store. You download it, fire it up, enter a code into iTunes, and as long as you're connected to wifi, you can control your iTunes monster. It'll show you what's playing, including cover art, let you control the volume, and select which speakers your sweet sweet tunes come pouring out of.
You've now built yourself a whole house music system, controllable from anywhere in your house, that rivals custom systems with names that end in -tron and X and cost thousands upon thousands of dollars, for a few hundred bucks worth of smooth plastic boxes and some cables. And if you don't have an iPhone, you can do the same thing with an iPod touch. This system will never fail to impress at parties, and lets you mingle instead of DJ. Plus, I wasn't joking when I said it makes showers AMAZING.
