iPods get Bluetooth, Remote Control

imagin8or writes "TheRegister tells us that Griffin, makers of various stylish Mac accessories, is adding remote and Bluetooth addons for iPods: BlueTrip, to connect your iPod to your hi-fi wirelessly, and AirClick, to remote control your iPod, iPod mini, or Mac/PC (3 products) via RF. The article also mentions FireWave (due Q2), which will be a FireWire connected (and powered) digital surround sound module. Now you can control your hi-fi from your iPod, your iPod from your remote and therefore lose both in the sofa cushions without pausing your electro-pop playlist."

WiFi would be cooler

[NardofDoom]

Imagine if you could stream music from your iPod to an Airport Express from anywhere in your house that has WiFi. Or share music via 802.11 from your iPod to any other iPod or iTunes client in the subnet that has this feature turned on. That would also be cool.

HTPC

[Anonymous Commando]

Get a Mac Mini, the FireWave, and the AirClick, and you've got yourself a nice little setup that can plug into your home theater system. The FireWave sounds exactly like what some people have been saying that the Mac Mini needs, better audio out options. Ask and ye shall receive...

Sounds reasonable...

[singularity]

There is already a remote for the iPod [tentechnology.com], but it is IR, not RF. It is also priced at $49 (I believe) which makes the Griffin remote a little better the cheaper, to boot.

The big thing that all the iPod remotes I have seen are missing is the ability to jump playlists.

Keyspan has their new Express Remote [keyspan.com] which can plug into an Airport Express and offers a lot more power. I have a Keyspan Digital Media Remote [keyspan.com] attached to my computer and I love it. I simply mapped two of the buttons to an AppleScript that advances ahead a playlist and then text-to-speeches the name of the new playlist.

I am wondering if the ability to skip ahead a playlist is built into the functionality of the iPod.

I lust after Bluetrip

[Dark Paladin]

I've had an iPod for about 3 years now (first a 5 GB that I sold on eBay 2 years ago when I bought my 30 GB), and Bluetrip is the "last thing" that I needed.

I have a CD player that's gone unused for over a year now because of my iPod, but to play on my stereo receiver I've used a Monster RCA cable of sorts.

Apple should be including Bluetrip as part of their hype, much as they used Belkin's to show off how to get photos from your digital camera to the iPod for storage.

Only Bluetrip looks cooler. Sit the iPod down in a charging spot, and you've got a music remote control and never need a CD player again.

The only way to make this better now is to let us sync our iPods to our computers as well. This way, I could buy music online, tell my iPod to Sync, and get my latest music on the Pod without having to move it from its perch (well, until I take it out to drive to work, but that's a different issue).

My Dream

[Grayden]

I just want to connect an iPod to my car's stereo (stock equipment) with a minimum of fuss. BlueTooth seems like a nice way to do it. Couldn't you theoretically build a BlueTooth receiver and the other relevant electronics into something the size of an audio cassette and still have room for a AAA battery or two to power it? Then you could slap your BlueTape© into the cassette player and stream music to your car's stereo from a BlueTooth-equipped iPod.