Make Any Speakers Wireless and Play Audio From Any Application

by Andrew Royer on May 29, 2010

Today I setup my Apple Airport Express to play music from any computer on my home speakers wirelessly. Super slick setup and was quite simple.

: Image by La Ignorancia Mata via Flickr

For the ultimate setup you need an existing wireless network to connect to, an Apple Airport Express, Apple iPhone or Touch with the Remote application, and Rogue Amoeba Airfoil.

First get an Apple Aiport Express and plug it into an outlet with no ethernet connection. Then open Airport Utility that comes with a mac in Utilities. Then go through the simple setup steps and choose connect to existing Wireless network and enter your credentials for your existing home network. Next plug in your speakers to the audio jack and you are now setup to play music from iTunes just change the little drop down box in the bottom right corner to your airport.

To play music from any application grab a copy of Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil cost $25. It enables Airtunes capability for any application including your favorite web sites and radio stations.

Who needs wires? Now I can control my entire iTunes library with my iPhone and play the music wirelessly on any speakers. When I get in range of my library I can start music when I get home from work. The next step is to be able to access my music library remotely. My iTunes library is already completely on a 1 TB external hard drive. Now I just need to share this hard drive unfortunately the Airport Express does not do this so I have to hack something else together or buy another product. Accessing your music library online may soon be easily available with Apple’s recent purchase of the online music service Lala or with Google’s purchase of mSpot.