ReTUNES. The Android iTunes remote control review.

I like my new HTC ONE M8 but I really don't have any music on it. I know it has an awesome audio processor and it probably sounds good but it doesn't carry my large iTunes library. More importantly, it doesn't stream music to my 12 speaker set-up like my iPhone. For me, Google's Music is not a suitable substitute for iTunes. You can't Chromecast to multiple audio receivers simultaneously or have multiple clients play your library at the same time (through Match or Network sharing). Thus, iTunes is still relevant. At home, I still rely on my multi-room, multi-speaker iTunes Airplay set-up. I like to listen to music across my three floor house in various rooms and I use my iPhone or iPad to control the music. Now, there is an option for Android and it works pretty good with the HTC ONE. That app is called ReTunes.

ReTunes is basically a smartphone remote control for iTunes. Meaning, it will allow you to control a computer running iTunes. It is the Android equivalent of the iOS Remote Control app that Apple provides for i-devices.If you have a centralize iTunes server with multiple AirPlay set-up, this app is pretty much it for Android users. The user experience is comparable to Apple remote app.

I think it is best to go over screenshots to discuss some of the functionalities.

First of all, you need to enable the iTunes remote control via a numeric key pairing. Simple set-up. You also have to be on the same Wi-Fi subnet.

You then select the paired iTunes machine/server. You can pair multiple computers and I've paired it to three. I don't know what the maximum number is but I doubt most people will have more than three iTunes servers running in their household.

Playback, track, searching, selection is the same as you would use on your desktop but in a smartphone UI. You can even enable visualization, shuffle,etc. 

It does an excellent job as a remote control. What else would you want? Well, for  me, the primary reason to use this is to control my Airplay speakers. I love how I am listening to music in my living room and select the basement to simultaneously play in the basement. As  I walk down the stairs, I can shut off the living room while the song is still playing. Once I free up the living room, my wife or anyone else can initiate control over the living room.

Lastly, one surprising feature is how ReTunes picks up my iTunes Radio station.

There you have it. One really good iTunes remote app for the Android ecosystem. If you are Android user stuck on iTunes, this is the app you should have on your primary homescreen. It is that good.

Link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.squallydoc.retune&hl=en

The beauty of Airplay

I was thinking about plopping down $35 for the Google HDMI dongle, the Chromecast. However, I happen to get a few airplay speakers in which my opinion went 360 degrees. The Chromecast only does video and not a good job at that. I listen to music mostly so audio streaming is pretty important for my use case needs.  Yesterday, I got a Klipsch G-17 and a Sony SA-NS500. When I set-up them up, I discovered something I never knew before: Multiple streaming to various speakers simultaneously. Take that AD2P Bluetooth! You don't get that compress AM sound of Bluetooth with Airplay and you don't need to pair if you are on the same network. I live in a house with three floors and approximately 4,000 sq foot and Airplay works everywhere. Bluetooth works at most 15 feet.

I did not pay attention until now but the ability to stream multiple speakers all at once is a stroke of genius.

The Chromecast would have a been a fun toy at $35 but I have no need for extra gadgets I often throw away into the sock drawer after 15 minutes of use. The key deterrent was the fact some of the streaming is gimped and not available on the low-end Chromebooks which I have. In addition to video, the key thing I use Airplay for is for music. Airplay is really mature and I can't wait to get my free iTunes radio (iTunes Match subscribers get ad-free playback). This will be pretty cool to listen to all that free music all over the house. This means, I think I will be investing a little more in Airplay and airplay devices.

Now, I think I'm going to invest in some AudioEngine A5+ and an Airport Express set-up. I just ordered a refurb Airport Express station for $65. I think it is well worth it. I may even splurge on some high-end Bowers and Wilkins A7 this Christmas.

Simply brilliant. The ability to walk from room to room, floor to floor, with all the speakers playing the same music track all synchronized is pretty cool indeed.

Practical iTunes backup with Rsync

If you are a mac user with a large iTunes collection, backups can be a chore. Some people use Time Machine, carbon-cloner/super-duper, or the traditional method of simple drag-n-drop. Well, I suggest you embrace the built-in *NIX way of doing things and just use rsync. 

It is natively built in the operating system and many of the cloner type apps are just pretty GUI skins on top of Rsync. Time machine is notorious at making duplicates when you don't need to. Who needs to revert back 4-5 revisions of the same file?

Since I started iTunes Match (review coming), I've been updating my music collection and re-tagging my mp3s quite a bit. For example, I would update artist and genre one week. Another week, I would swap out my album art for higher resolution ones that will look nice on the retina iPad. Time Machine will store the 3 different iterations in my example.

Also, rsync is more intuitive than simply drag-n-dropping files. I have over 20,000 files in a music folder. I may be updating or changing 3-4 files at any given time. I may not know the location of the files but I've made updates within iTunes. Instead of looking for the files or copying the entire folder, rsync will simply match up what needs to be synchronized. This is a real time saver.

I won't go into the details of Rsync. You can google and read the man page.  Here is a very simple usage example with options explained:

 rsync -auvp --progress /Users/username/Music/ /Volumes/MUSIC_BK/Music/  
 -a archive  
 -u update only (don't update newer files)  
 -v verbose  
 -p preserve permissions  
 --progress = show progress  

Here, I am simply copying updates from my Music folder to a USB drive. In fact, you can simply write a shell script and leave it on the USB/Firewire drive. When I need to synch, I simply drag the script over to a Terminal window to start my rsync session.

Rsync is also good in multi-platform environments and cloud. I always rsync files to my DropBox or my PogoPlug. When I have a bunch of shell scripts or excel files, I use rsync to synchronize files between OSX and Linux.