For ages I’ve been fiddling about with my iPhone and my Mac Mini in order to get one to work with the other. I wanted to use Apple Remote to control my iTunes library upon my Mini. But I never got it to work seamlessly. Untill now. None of the pages I’ve visited told me the ultimate trick. Or at least, it didn’t point it out very specificly.
And what’s worse, I never thought it myself. It is so very obvious. The connection between the two works most stable if both products use the same WIRELESS network connection. While this seems logical, I have been able to connect the two while my Mac Mini only uses the wired connection to my netwerk. I never configured it to connect wirelessly. And this is the exact trick! While other Apps work perfectly regardless of the connection used, Apple’s Remote does seam funrable
Make sure the computer you want to be able to control with Apple’s Remote is (also) connected to your network wirelessly. Otherwise, it will probably connect but does so very, very unreliable. While it also seems obvious, make sure both the mac computer and the iPhone/iPod connect to the same wireless network. Nowadays those networks seem a dime a dozen.
Good luck!
In March 2006 I kinda officially switched to the mac. After working upon Windows based machines for over a decade (I really started with Windows ‘95 although having worked with DOS versions before), the switch to OS X really felt as a fresh breeze! Not because of Windows, but because of OS X and the way it worked/works.
Before March 2006 I bought an Mac Mini because I wanted to be able to test my websites and web-based applications on both platforms and browsers. The Mac Mini gave me an insight into what working with OS X would be like. Most programs I worked with upon Windows were available for Mac. And in case they weren’t, I was able to find some fine replacements (I’ll post a list of programs for both sides later on).
The Mac Mini’s performance in comparison with my Windows PC was the only reason I didn’t made the switch earlier. My Windows clone was quite a bit faster. The decision to switch completely was kinda made for me. If I was to run Windows Vista to it’s full capacity I would have to upgrade my PC or even buy a complete new one. And since I rather wanted a Apple with OS X, I decided to switch completely.
The Mac I bought was an Macbook Pro 15 inch. This because I was working at client’s offices more and more, so the flexibility of an laptop was necessary. The Mac Mini (G4) became a beautifull media centre on with I’m able to watch the internet in the living room.
Switching to OS X was very easy. If I would have know I would have done it much earlier….
No no, I my not giving away free computers randomly. Or even regularly. I just decided that having 4 computers personally is more than enough. To much even. While I ran Windows upon my Intel Macs (Macbook Pro and iMac) I still had an ugly grey PC case below my desk. Occasionally I bummed my knee or foot against it, It disappeared beneath a pile of papers, it got attacked by a virus so I had to do a complete re-install of Windows XP SP2. But it still worked fine whenever I needed it.
But since I became more enthusiastic about working in an clean work environment I decided to get rid of that computer. The same day I decided to do so, I spoke to my brother. He wanted to buy another PC because his was becoming sluggish and old. Et voilá! My kind of retired workhorse found a new home. And as of today my home is completely run by Apple computers. Me like!
Of course a can’t get rid of Windows forever. Since I develop web-based applications I will continue to have a need for Windows and it’s IE versions.
