what does:

"though this upgrade doesn't entirely solve the fact that AirTunes is not the best way to stream music in the home.

mean?

Yeah Giz what's a cheaper/better solution for wifi - printing - music streaming for a mac household than a AE?

I think he means that Airtunes doesn't suit everyone's needs. If you have an iMac in your home office and some sweet speakers in the lounge, Airtunes only lets you stream the music, not control it.

For me the Airport Express is fine, as I have a Macbook and can't be doing with plugging in audio, printer and ethernet cables every time I get home.

A simple solution to the problem above is Salling Clicker on your mobile phone. That assumes your phone has bluetooth and can run the clicker client (which almost all phone made in the past year or two can, excluding the iPhone).

Hell, I hate Macs and I will admit that my buddies old Airtunes setup always worked pretty slick.

@foxfire235: @ronnsprocket:
I agree with Giz that a better solution should exist for streaming music considering a) how locked down Airtunes is and b) the fact that Apple only offers Airtunes on the AE and not their other devices.... but I'd still like further clarification on that statement as well.

Does something better (and similar) exist for a reasonable (and similar) price? If so, I'd love to find out about it before I buy a new AE for my other set(s) of speakers.

btw, yes, you can use Airfoil to jack the audio stream of any app not just iTunes, but it's not free and is a tad buggy.

I love my Airtunes. I bring my powerbook anywhere I want to control my tunes from and it works perfectly. Sure can't beat the price, either. I just wish it allowed for an external antenna.

You can use a Keyspan Express Remote to navigate your library from the AirPort Express. They've been on the market for about four years now. Of course for not much more you can get an tv.

its doesnt seem like it should difficult for someone to mass produce an airtunes-type product for relatively cheap. I mean, like $30-40 bucks cheap. All of these proprietary adapters from onkyo and sony are way overpriced. just give me a dongle i plug into my router and my stereo. radio shack brand, i dont care.

or an ipod touch app. i would take that, too.

For the sake of this debate, I would like to add one thing: If Apple were to put AirTunes on an iPhone or an iPod touch, it would add some potency to the Express. As it stands, however, there are better solutions for the home—not just what many of you have already mentioned above, but also systems from Sonos and Logitech, and many streaming products designed for iPods (rather than iTunes).

I love my Airport Express units. I have three of them (basement, first floor & second flroor) which lets me stream audio to the whole house from iTunes on my Win XP machine.

I just wish Apple would allow you to stream to Airport Express devices from more than just iTunes. It would be nice to stream from an Apple TV or from a Mac mini running Front Row - but I've heard it's only possible to stream from iTunes.

If I could use Front Row running on a mac mini to stream to my Airport Express devices I would be in heaven - I want a 10' interface for my music collection.

Airtunes only lets you stream to one location at a time. Squeezebox, Sonos, etc. all let you stream to multiple locations.

So 802.11n.... Now where's my streaming video!

@ejl10: You can stream to multiple airport express units at once.

@f00fighter: Pretty sure with one of the last leopard updates you can stream from front row/mini setup to you airport express. Haven't tried it with mine though..

For $99 this is a great value. For a while I ran my AE as a wireless bridge/WDS repeater (in conjunction with a WRT54GS running DD-WRT).
Was a total pain to set up with a windows machine, but very effective, and stable once up and running.
In fact, when I do consulting projects I usually recommend AE's as wireless AP's.

if you want streaming video / control over your content, get an appleTV 2.0 -- airtunes comes with it

@ocmike: nope, not yet.

amazing device. been using it with a pc for years. just got an iMac last week and the switch was seamless :)

you do need iTunes as others have said to use this, but I haven't found a better piece of free software for music yet anyway.

i've tried several other methods and none were as easy or sounded as good as the AE (using the optical output of course). if you ask me it's a winner for the price/performance.

so, can i attach a usb hard drive and use it with time machine? no.

i'm not buying it then.

@f00fighter: I believe Take 2 on Apple TV has an airtunes option.

If you recently (3/9) bought the Airport Express, are you able to return it for an upgrade at all, or with a restocking fee? What's the story on the you-got-screwed-'cause-they-upgraded timeframe?

Maybe someone with more knowledge of these things can shed some light on it for me.

I have a separate 802.11n AP. I am now in need of extending the range a bit, and was wondering if this works with a D-Link AP, or if I need to buy the Airport Extreme Base Station and then I can use this to build a mesh and extend the range?

Been trying to find answers and coming up blank... help Giz readers!

I figure at worst case I'll buy it and try.

Theeeeese leeetle deeeevices can relay and extend signals to the current wholes in my current network then? mmmmmmm....

Awesome product - and now it's 'n too - best wifi unit on the market.

For those having trouble controlling their streaming Mac - well, I just use the built in screen sharing in Leopard to control my Mac Pro from the sofa using a MacBook Pro.

Easy solution, works like a charm.

AirPort Express into a decent DAC provides and awesome feed for audio - kudos to Apple for AirTunes and putting a mini TOSlink on the thing!

@izzaboo:

You can mesh with other Apple APs, using WDP - not with 3rd party APs though.

With a third party AP as your main AP, your AP Express becomes a wireless end point only - ie you can stream to it, but it does not re-broadcast that wifi locally.

With all Apple APs, you can extend the WLAN and re-broadcast locally - nice solution, although it does hit potential bandwidth.

Time to update my Wireless iTunes Speaker Thingy.

[www.thebettertons.com]

@MINI Driver:

My set up: Cable Modem to Belkin WiFi router to Mac via Ethernet cables. Wife has a WindowsXP laptop that connects wirelessly to the Belkin.

Question: Can I connect an Airport Express to my stereo and stream iTunes from my Mac to the stereo, or do I have to substitute an Airport (or a second Airport Express) for the Belkin to create the WiFi network? I did RTFM the Airport Express manual, but it was not clear to me. Thanks for any info and please excuse my ignorance.

we use airtunes at home from our two mac laptops, and it's great. period.

@glaeven: I was ALMOST ready to buy this, when i saw that you can't hook a hard drive up to it. Chalk it up to apple deliberately crippling their products so as not to cannibalize their higher end offerings. Bollocks to you, apple, bollocks!

Anyone know of an 802.11N router with a USB port that CAN be used for a hard drive (besides the airport extreme - might as well go with time capsule for that kinda dough)?

Airport Express is the single most difficult thing I've ever had to configure. No documentation, poor software, sketchy functionality.

After 4 hours I got it working once. Then the next time I tried to connect, the AE was nowhere to be found on the network. Sweet.

@Barcard:

Yes the Airport Express can connect to non-Apple routers. Mine connects to a Linksys router.

@lpranal:

The Airport Express is not intended as a full functioned router. Rather, it's a jack of all trades device that is primarily intended to extend the functionality of an existing wireless network. It also is a great little travel device that can create a wireless network anywhere you can grab an ethernet cable.

@Barcard: Yes. That's exactly what AE does. You can run it sans network - and stream to a stereo without it being on another network, or even plugged into a router. You can use it as its own wifi router or you can run it as a bridge from another network to extend the range. Hope that helps.

@Barcard: No, you don't need to replace your belking, you can do one of those 2 things:

1. Bridge the Airport Express (AE) with your belkin, creating an extended wireless network, now you have only ONE network, connect to that network from your macbook pro, connect the jack to your stereo and you can use your airtunes from now, I _think_ this is how it works, I don't see why the airtunes function would require to create a separate network, so I'll _assume_ it doesn't need it because that would be very stupid of apple to do.

2. Create a separate network with your AE and connect to that network, connect the speakers and itunes will detect it (you know how to set it up, don't you?).

As I said, I don't see what you should need to create a new network, so I guess that it works while being bridged to the belkin at the same time.

Somebody said that this didn't let you connect a hard drive to it... yes you can connect a hard drive and use it 100% but mac os x wont let you use it as a time machine Harddrive because then nobody (that already have a external hard drive used as time machine backup) would buy time machines, unless you use the little hack that somebody made (google it) and save yourself from spending 500$ on a time machine.

My Airport Express is connected to the house speaker system. I am able to stream music through the Pre-N Belkin router from my PC and laptop, both running Win XP. Recently discovered Airfoil, which allows streaming of non-iTunes music like Rhapsody and Pandora. The AE quality of sound is excellent, much better than Comcast cable TV music stations.

Simple solution for iPhone owners (with Mac only computers) to control iTunes while away from the computer:

[www.iospirit.com]

I've been posting this a few time already, but you can plug a NDAS hard drive (I use a Ximeta) in the ethernet port of the Express and Time Machine will ask you if you want to use it. It's that simple, no hack, just plug and play. Now with n it will be even greater:)!!!

@Dark-Dx: Unless you know something I don't, you can't plug a hard drive into airport express and use it... that's a feature clearly listed on the product page, whereas the airport EXTREME will work with a hard drive, albeit without time machine functionality (barring any hacks, awesome as they are)

@lpranal: I don't always remember everything (I haven't owned any wireless router from apple in the past) but at least it's nice to hear that you can connect a ethernet enabled HD to the airport express and use it as a time machine backup :)

@Barcard:

Yes - your AP Express becomes a wireless client on your Belkin WLAN, and you can stream music over your Belkin wifi to the AP Express.

You use the same basic set-up as for your laptop when configuring the AP Express to talk to the Belkin.

@f00fighter: f00fighter, can you stream the same music Simultaneously to all your AE's? I was thinking of buying 2 or 3 of these for my XP system, but i wanted to make sure they supported this feature. I currently have a Roku, so i don't know if it's worth replacing in all rooms of my house unless it can do this.

Thanks,
jr

@jradi:

Yes, assuming you have a recent version of iTunes. You simply select multiple AE's in the drop down list that's in the bottom right corner of the main iTunes window.