App Review: AirPhones

So do you remember the infomercial that comes on TV about the couple who are in bed and the husband is watching TV? The wife gets annoyed because she cannot sleep with the TV turned up, and the husband cannot hear the TV with it turned down. I know you remember it because it gets played right before the ShamWow segment.

Well guess what, your iPhone or iPod Touch now has the same feature! AirPhones allows your iPhone to become a wireless pair of headphones. Enabling you to enjoy DVDs, web feeds, YouTube, iTunes and much more on your Mac wirelessly. As of right now the application only works with Intel Macs running 10.5. The Universal Binary and Windows versions are to follow shortly.

All that is needed is the iPhone app along with AirPhones wireless server software for your Mac. Just start the server on your Mac, then hit the AirPhones app on your phone and TaDa you are now streaming sound instantly. I also should note that you must have your headphones plugged into your iPhone. The sound quality isn’t as good as using headphones while listening to your iPod, but it is good enough. I enjoy the application quite a lot. It has helped in the W. household when fights were going to ensue about the sound level of the Mac while some where trying to sleep. The only problem i have with it, is the lack of Boxee support. But that could always change in the future. $4.99 in the App Store is a deal. Get it.

Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Ease of setup. Doesn’t use a lot of system resources on the Mac end of the app.
Cons: Doesn’t support all formats of sound. Cannot run in the background ( Not their fault. C’mon Apple!)
Verdict: The app has good quality sound, and through updates to the server has an opportunity to improve. Would love to see Boxee support added. Would be perfect with it.

AirPhones is $4.99 in the App Store.