TuneConnect Review: Control Your Music from Anywhere

A-

TuneConnect

Cost: 

Free 

By: 

Matt Patenaude & Laurent Baumann

– Quick Setup
– iTunes-Like Library Browsing
– Growl and LastFM Support

– Mac Only
– No AirTunes Support

About Our Rating System Review Policy

tuneconnectDo you have an old Mac used to play your music from iTunes?  Hate it when you have to drop what you’re doing and go change playlists?  Luckily for you there is a little app called TuneConnect which allows you to control your iTunes library from anywhere in the house as long as it’s connected to your network.

When downloading the disk image, two things come packaged inside of it.  The app itself, and the broadcasting preference pane.  To control your iTunes library from afar, you need to have the broadcasting preference pane activated.  To do that, double click it from inside the the already downloaded and now mounted disk image.

picture-21

Be sure to drag the slider in the bottom left-hand corner to “ON”.  You may also choose to turn on the broadcasting feature every time you login by clicking the appropriate check box.

picture-12

When opening TuneConnect on the computer that you want to use to control your library with, you’ll get an automatically updating list showing you  which computers are broadcasting their libraries.  If you’ve set up a password, you’ll need to enter it in order to control the computer.  If not, just go ahead and click your library.

The main window looks like the one to the right.  The song, artist, and progress are shown at the top.  You can drag the slider to go forward or backwards in the currently playing song.  Below that is the album art of the currently playing song.

At the bottom is a volume control along with and rewind play/pause, and fast-forward buttons.

In the bottom right-hand corner of the main window is a button that takes you to a window that resembles iTunes’s main window.  You then can browse through your music – playlists and all, to choose and play your songs.

picture-31

In terms of performance, TuneConnect does not disappoint.  In it’s second iteration (at the time of writing v2.1) TuneConnect has been through it’s bumps and bruises already.  Controls are quick to respond and viewing large libraries take seconds.  Everything seems well thought out.  In order to use TuneConnect you need to have Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, however 10.5 Leopard is recommended.

One might compare this app to Apple’s Remote app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  Both are extremely useful apps.  It all depends on what you have and what you are using at the time.  Both apps allow you to browse your library and play what ever you have.  If you like the ability to type in what you are looking for into a search box, then TuneConnect happily obliges.  If you aren’t near a computer but have your iPhone or iPod Touch, then Apple’s free remote app is the one for you.

TuneConnect is available at http://www.tuneconnect.net/ for the unbelievable price of free.