I upgraded my iPad to iOS 4.3 and gave the Home Sharing feature a quick try.
You have to go into Settings > iPod and enter your Apple ID before you can use Home Sharing. I have several Apple IDs... I just entered one and it seems to work.
Once you do that, the video app on the iPad will show a new tab named "Shared". Tap that and you'll see your computers running iTunes. Tap one... and watch a stupid spinning wheel while it loads the content... the first time it's way too long... and in subsequent times it's still too long to be practical... after that you can actually stream video wirelessly and flawlessly.
I am disappointed about teh way you access your videos though. It requires way too many taps and too much waiting.
On the iPod app, I find it even less practical. You actually don't see where your shared stuff is. You need to tap on "Library" to open a popup menu where you can see your computers. There again, spinning wheels and delays. Bleh...
I don't really know what to make of this... yeah maybe watch podcasts in bed on the iPad... oh wait, I turn off my computers at night... hum...
No, what I'd really want is actually the opposite, I'd like to stream the shit out of my iPhone when I'm at work!! I don't have my iTunes library on my work computer, so I guess it would be nice if it would just wirelessly access my iPhone, but no, it doesn't work that way round. You can't stream from device to computer.
What sort of works though, is to connect the iPhone to the computer and stream through the câble. But that feature was already there before iOS 4.3.
So yeah, Home Sharing: it works but I don't know what to do with it :p
Comments from long ago:
Comment from: jejacks0n
Thanks for the article.
I have a stereo system that runs throughout my house and has speakers in the ceiling (as in it was installed with some upgrades to the electrical of the house).. I have a dock that I can play music from my iphone/ipad through, but I can’t fit my entire collection on either of those devices, and I don’t want to wire it up to a computer in the other room.
The addition in 4.3 provides me the ability to play any music I own from my main “media” machine into any of the audio devices that I have throughout the house.
That’s the basic use case for it, since I have a different setup.
2011-03-20 23-03
Comment from: Brian
Does the homesharing depend on your connection? And how exactly can you stream from an iphone to the computer through the cable?
2011-08-25 04-35