Appletell | Apple, Mac, iPhone, iPod | News, Rumors, Reviews, How-Tos

You’ll probably remember last month when I wrote about a rumor stating that Apple planned to make their own iPhone remote for release in the App Store. Well, it turned out to be true, and it’s awesome. Apple, with a stroke of genius, has decided to call this iPhone application Remote. It’s free, it’s 1MB, and it’s available through the App Store that was launched yesterday.

Here’s how it works. After installation on your iPhone, you launch the application by simply touching it. The first page you will be greeted with shows a list of available iTunes libraries to connect to. To connect to a library, touch it. After that, you will be shown a four digit code on your phone, and the iPhone remote will show up under the “Devices” header on your iTunes sidebar. Click the device in iTunes and enter the four digit code you see on the iPhone. Voila! You are now connected and ready to control your entire iTunes library. It’s that easy!

The first thing you will notice about the interface is that it is exactly like the iPod interface you’ve grown so used to on your iPhone. You simply navigate through your music in the same way you would if you were listening through your headphones. The only difference is that the music will play from your computer. You can choose to keep the computer always connected when you’re on the local network or to connect each time you launch the app, also. Again, it is very simply to use, and it’s awesome.

The application only works over your local Wi-Fi network, but it can connect to any and all libraries on that network. The downside to this application (and it is a very minor gripe) is that you will notice a slight lag when loading the album art over the wireless network. Other than that, it is exactly what you would expect. Next time you throw a party, this will be a very nice way to control the music on your machine without actually sitting at it. I highly recommend downloading and installing it.

Note: This application also works with the AppleTV, but I don’t have one of those. Therefore, I was not able to test it with those devices, but I imagine it works just as well.

Product [Remote]