iTunes Remote

I used this app years ago and even forgot I had it installed. And then came on a use case I’ve wanted for years - and this does it! Beautifully!!! Among other things, I use Remote to control the music playing on my main Mac through AirPlay to my main entertainment system. Now I can listen to the same stream in the office, family room, and outside and am free to roam about the yard without worrying about WiFi dropping out. And I still have complete control over what is playing (and volume and more) from my iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch! Can’t wait to pair some friends phones so my Mac can serve as a jukebox at the next party! I’ve always wanted to do that! The only thing I wish it did that it doesn’t do is allow me to Add to my library! (I think I get why and it’s not too much to go over to Music and do it and then come back.) Well done Apple!!!

This app makes it so easy to search and control a 3rd gen Apple TV, since you can use a keyboard to enter your search. It’s also great for playing music and videos from a Mac – you can even change where it AirPlays to, which is awesome. What it lacks is the ability to search Apple Music if you’ve got a subscription. It only finds songs already added to your library. I have a playlist of internet streams, which it finds, which is great.. Trying to connect to a Mac that is sleeping is hit and miss. I wish I could always remotely wake it and start some tunes.

This is one of the most used apps I have on my IOS devices, using it to control a headless Mac mini music server. There are no iTunes alternatives available I’m aware off, as such it is important to me that it continues to remain relevant. For the most part it works flawlessly with a local music library, what it doesn’t do is quite astonishing, it doesn’t allow selecting music from Apple Music. If I choose an album or song in Apple Music using Remote Desktop from a Mac and then start iTunes Remote on iPad it appears in now playing and functions normally so it seems feasible. Please Apple update this app with Apple Music functionality, don’t make me email Tim Cook over such an obvious shortcoming. Updated: Apple is rolling out lossless HiRez Apple Music soon, yet this their only remote app for controlling the Music App still cannot see any of the Apple Music streaming stuff. While Roon and Audirvana's remote apps can do just that with their apps controlling HiRez streaming services like Qobuz and Tidal.

Via the remote app I am able to send uncompressed music from my iMac all over my house and control it with my iPad, my iPhone, & my Apple Watch! Very cool! I’ve noted two problems that I haven’t been able to fix: After any significant time out (1 hour), my home pods disappear as on option to send music via Remote app. I have to walk to the Mac and select the option manually (again) before it appears again (temporarily) in app. The remote app sees all other Airplay devices (including non-Apple) and the Music app sees all devices, but the Remote app remains blind. 2nd problem: When Remote App uploads my (extensive) Mac music library, it sometimes lists (& plays) tracks in the wrong order. Not acceptable to one (like me) who appreciates listening to an album in the way intended. Fix these problems and we’ve got a 6 Star app!

I have been a long standing Apple advocate for almost all products. I particularly loved the integrated nature of things even though some protocols are proprietary. iTunes was the most important app and allowed me to share my library with others and also launch and manage all music libraries across our home network and devices. It was easy and a one of a kind product suite. With the introduction of the streaming Music product Apple continuously tweets and screws with Remote App Library management and overall utility of the integration. I am really disgusted and won’t go into the more granular inconveniences but please just leave it alone! My iTunes library has over 10,000 songs that were transferred from CD’s or purchased through iTunes. Not sure when you keep making it difficult to use, unless of course you are trying to kill historical use to add streaming subscriptions. I assure you, you will NEVER get me to do that.

Catalina got rid of the forever spinning beach ball that was present in the last iteration (abortion, really) of itunes on Mojave, especially when ripping music from a cd. But remote, which has had many issues over the years, seems to have an amnesia problem, this time losing track of its host computer, even sometimes while it is playing a playlist! Only way to reconnect is by deleting the remote and reestablishing the Connection. It works for a short while and then the same thing happens. I use this with Hegel music products, one of the best, if no THE best airplay receiver. I have been using iTunes and airplay for more than 10 years. It has steadily gone downhill as iOS and intoxicating profits drove Apple’s focus, while OS X steadily went downhill. The dreaded Apple permissions debacle is enough to make a grown man cry. The only person this is going to keep from copying the music is the Apple computer owner. A thumb in the eye for being an Apple enthusiast. I have owned most everything Apple makes, including Xserve. It used to be fun to work with Apple. Now it’s a hair pulling ritual. For the first time since I started using Apple, I an thinking of alternatives. Lastly the interface with music and iphone is terrible. Just awful. Can’t see playlists, edit playlists, delete playlists along with their songs. Clearly Apple doesn’t care. And it’s very very sad.

After this latest update and MacOS update, working swimmingly. I love that my whole house AirPlay Setup works as designed once again! Old rating: Had I known about the iTunes remote breaking when this Catalina upgrade came about, it would have been a deal breaker. I’ve had this app for years and used it regularly to stream music to all my airplay speakers. Worked wonderfully. I put Catalina on my mac, and it’s broken. Apple would be wise to fix, with all the issues with the iOS and macOS, which they absurdly and uncharacteristically botched, and the anger in the community over this among other “losses”, which outweigh the “enhancements”. Apple, you were better than this.

This is by far the most effective way to control music on a large downloaded library in a home theater or dedicated listening area from afar. Reliable, packed with features, and is simple to set up. One suggestion, though... Can you let us look up Apple Music searches through this app? It currently is library only, and while that does include Apple Music downloads and streaming, you can’t look for new searches without going to iTunes on your PC. You can play/pause once they’re going, you just manually have to search on iTunes. Please add this to the app!

The app is great. I listen to my music from a Mac mini (no screen no keyboard) and this app makes it possible. However, a few features more would make it perfect: 1. To be able to control shuffle mode: I have not been able to switch from song to album shuffle and back from the remote app. 2. When I choose to view the music by genres I get to see the songs and not the albums. As most of my music is classical, this is quite a disappointment. I hope this could be mended and it would make an unbeatable app. It Would be great to keep up with the new iTunes. Btw, aren't you working on an app to control the whole of the Mac mini from my iPad?

After Catalina, I waited a long time for the return of Remote support. While it finally works on iPhone, I can’t it to work properly on my watch. It shows my Mac library in the list, but after connecting, nada. I‘ve read all the help files, researched it to no end, removed/re-installed/re-added more times than I can count, with no luck. Feature request: Instead or fixing Remote, it would be even better if the remote functionality with my Mac could be incorporated into the Now Playing watch app – it would save so many steps and be much easier! (Bc honestly, using Remote app to control Mac Music app is really clunky and slow as it is anyway, with so many taps and waiting between taps to get to a simple music control like adjusting volume or skipping to the next track.) It really doesn’t make sense that Watch integration is only right with iOS and not my Mac too.

Like everything associated with iTunes or the new Apple Music, the remote app is just so-so. I’ve been using Macs since 1985 and I’d gotten used to great care being paid to what Apple used to call human factors engineering, what we now call user-interface design. itunes’ design was so poor you’d swear it was written by Microsoft. Apple Music is worse, if that’s possible. The Remote app works — if everything is painstakingly set up — most of the time. There are limitations about what you can do with playlists that don’t make sense, especially in a closed environment where everything is designed send coded by one company. A big company. A company with lots of money. Money it seems not to want to spend on getting music streaming right.

So far I haven’t been impressed with many of the changes since Apple decided to chop iTunes in half. Why did you take away the Airplay button? Now I have to go to my computer to make iTunes connect to my Apple TV via Airplay (which is still way faster than loading from the Apple TV!) Before I could connect it from the app while sitting on my couch. Also, there’s no Airplay setting in the Apple TV app that will maintain the preference to automatically Airplay to your Apple TV like before. Why take that away? It worked so great before! Now I have to select it from my computer every time that I want to watch anything. I have purchased ALL the Apple things like you wanted me to, why won’t they play well together?! (Note: I am writing this review while I am patiently waiting for my Apple TV to load content from my library...)

I’ve ripped all of my CDs, and neighbors’ as well, onto a an external drive attached to my Mac Mini M2 at lossless quality. I use the app to stream music from the computer Ito a Bluesound node attached to my stereo. I also access the music files through my two AppleTV devices. I have access to my music pretty much though out my house. In some cases, I can find the music I listen to more from the only on the CDs. Also, it is easier to manage playlists from Apple Music.

Apple seems to have orphaned this app since they want people to be so irritated by its lack of even the smallest features to help people use it that they switch to paid Apple Music subscriptions. When I view my music library in BluOS App, and select Genre I can then view songs, composers, albums, artists, etc. But in Apple Remote I can only see songs grouped by album. Annoying if you are trying to find an album in a genre among many. What I would love would be the column browser from iTunes in the iPad app, that is and always has been the most flexible tool for finding stuff. Ironically its one of the most ancient, since like the rest of the original Macintosh UI they cribbed it from the Smalltalk browser of the Xerox Alto from the 70s.

This app like so many other Apple apps is so full of bugs and so frustrating to use. For someone who has his own music file library, this app makes one question why keeping using Apple products. New Music app for MacOS is a joke. Trying to sync apple devices to my library is hit and miss and requires reboots of MacBook and devices at times to sync properly. So I started using iTunes on windows which seems to be more stable, but the Remote app randomly displays different playlist and playlist folders just starting the app or creating new playlists. Taps on virtual buttons on screen, such as “Playing Now” do not work at times and require tapping another button or restarting app. This doesn’t even qualify as an alpha release, much less beta or live rollout release.

Remote is a cool concept. It lets me adjust the Music volume playing on my Apple TV or iMac from my iPhone or iPad. In theory, it could also let me change what’s playing. The in theory part is that I subscribe to Apple Music and have had my subscription for over 5 years. Remote let’s me select among “my” recordings in my Apple library. This is basically the music I ripped or purchased before I started subscribing to Apple Music. It does not let me select Apple Music subscription tracks. It does not let me select Apple Music radio stations. At this point it basically lets me select tracks I’m not very interested in. That’s really limiting.

Such a simple notion: control Apple Music from your iOS device. How hard could it be, if youre already Apple, to modify the existing Music app on iOS to control a remote Music app on MacOS? But no. Right off the bat you can tell this was some half-baked summer intern project that’s not been maintained: doesnt work in landscape mode, Now Playing doesnt rotate to the current orientation at all (ie is upside down is the power cord to your phone is on the top, as it is on a stand), and there is seemingly no way to select music to be played from anything other than your physical music Library. Huh? Basically, all I can do with it is pause/unpause/skip songs *after I start playing them on my Mac*!! It wont even wake up the Mac! C’mon Apple! You’re better than this!

Now that iTunes functionality has moved to the new Music app in the Catalina MacOS, not surprisingly, those who have not moved forward have been left to suffer the slow decline of Remote functionality. Myself included. This is the nature of the software universe, so take a relaxing breath since it is fruitless to expect such old technology to function as intended so far beyond its useful life. One can no longer add a Play Next song to the UpNext playlist without the currently playing song muting for half a second while some buffer refills (or whatever is the cause). If you wait until a new song begins playing, you can sometimes get around this flaw.

This is an app I use all the time to play music from my Mac through the various stereos in my house using Airplay. I really rely on. I just wish Apple would pay a little more attention to it and update it to match some of the functions in the computer and iPad. For example, there is no ‘Recently Added’ as there is everywhere else through the Apple ecosystem. Also, the version for the Watch flat-out doesn’t work. Seems to be an orphan app — I just hope they don’t totally abandon it.

Very nice useful App, though recently it has stopped functioning properly, I can’t scroll left right up or down. Only click in and menu out... strange thought it might be a temporary glitch, but it hasn’t fallen back in gear for the past few days. But this app is or was awesome to have especially if you misplace your Apple TV remote not to mention all the shortcuts it holds within to get to content❣️ ...hope you all will repair the glitch soon🙏🖖🏼💖

I have a Mac mini that we use as a media server that is hooked up to an audiophile system. You can tell the sound difference between Apple Music and actual cds we ripped and play on iTunes. That being said we prefer using iTunes and this remote is severely limiting. I haven’t seen any functionality added in years. Please don’t forget about this app! I know very few people use it, but there are some of us out there that are crying for a revamp!! I also subscribe to Apple Music which only shows up if you’ve downloaded the songs to the iTunes folder.

ITunes/Music Remote App stopped working on iPhone 11 pro and Apple Watch 4 after upgrade to macOS Catalina. Was resolved on both iWatch and iPhone when Catalina was upgraded to 10.5.2. However when Watch was upgraded to 6.1.1, Remote app on watch stopped working again. Hope this can be resolved soon. Also, When using Remote app on iPhone, ir doesn’t show on locked screen. Have to unlock to see whats playing.

For the most part, it does work correctly, controlling the sound from the Mac via Wi-Fi, but even on Gigabit Ethernet, it still loses connection with the Mac at intermittent intervals. As a result, it’s great to use only for personal projects, and not for professional use. If Apple could give people the option of controlling their music via Bluetooth, or improve the Wi-Fi connectivity of this app, it would be great to use.

The app works great with low to no latency that I could notice. The only feature that I think would make this app perfect would be if they added an option to add a star rating to songs through the app. It could be added in the now tab where the three dots are, and the only option there is to show or hide the visualizer.

This app does a good job playing/pausing music on another device—it finds libraries well, and works without hitches. However, it is a little lacking in some respects. The interface feels clunky and awkward compared to the Music app—e.g., the menus in Music are much more responsive, and the queue management isn’t tucked behind an “edit” mode. It also does not have the ability to select music that is on Apple Music but not in the library, which seems like an oversight given the increasingly streaming-based music ecosystem.

This app is great when it works. It happens to work about 50% of the time. You can turn home sharing on and off to get it to find your home library. But that works about 66% of the time. It stopped working completely when the last major MacOS occurred. You can tell apple doesn’t care about WiFi networking anymore. They are getting out of WiFi routers and it shows. If I was going to invest in a room by room music system hooked up with multiple units playing from the Music App (not iTunes now) I would invest in a Sonos system. Way more stable and dependable. Apple just wants to make easy money now. No vision other than that.

If you like to play music on iTunes and use AirPlay to play music in different parts of the house, this lets you control it via your phone. Unfortunately more recent versions have removed some nice features and support on newer versions of Mac OS is a bit rough, but I hope this App continues to work. Sadly, it seems the Apple Watch version of this no longer works as well. But this is one of the apps I’ve been using the longest and I hope it stays around for a while longer.

Even though there is an official app for the Apple Watch, the app doesn’t have the ability to display what’s on your iPhone. It solely relies on the wifi connection. Why is that a problem? Because my WiFi is on a faster 5ghz frequency, and the Apple Watch is the only Apple device I own that doesn’t support 5ghz. Therefor I cannot use my Apple Watch with the remote app. However because my mac and iPhone are both connected to the 5ghz the Remote App works on the iPhone. Why can I not use the existing connection between the iPhone and Apple Watch to control the Remote App on the iPhone??? Why doesn’t Apple step up and release an Apple Watch with 5ghz support???

Been in the throes of this music playing use case since my first airports expresses bought in early 2005. Glad Apple saw the value in bringing it to Catalina and the mobile OSes. Keep it, please. Only drawback in the past number of years is that synchronicity among active airport expresses was better for my setup during the middle of the period since 2005 than in the beginning and more recently. Got better and then got worse.

Using Apple Remote to control iTunes over B&W Zeppelin play: When things go smooth, I start a song or playlist in Remote, and still have to disable and then re-enable the Zeppelin on my iPhone or iPad. Unfortunately, when things do not go like this, I have to reset everything, and be very patient... I can’t blame either company for this, as I don’t know where communication fails. However, I still hope that two companies that strive to the best in their own field can sort this out and provide me/us with the best listening experience possible!

The Apple Remote app is both simple to use and advanced in its functionality. It is *so* nice to be able to quickly and responsively control the music throughout my home. Being able to connect to and control volume on our numerous HomePods, AirPlay 2 Connected speakers, and Apple TV’s is very helpful and makes the entire sound system much more cohesive.

I have an Apple TV connected to a receiver that feeds speeds speakers at multiple locations, living room, kitchen side porch, back porch, etc. The Apple TV is linked to an iTunes library through out home wi-fi network on a desktop computer. When trying to control iTunes using the Remote app from either an iPhone or an iPad it is hit or miss. Almost never can connect from the iPhone, sometimes from the iPad. Support from Apple is horrible. You have to luck into some user who may know what he is talking about

I just upgraded to a Mac for the first time after using iTunes on PC’s for 17 years. On my last PC with iTunes half the time the remote app didn’t even detect my iTunes on wifi. On my new Mac and Apple Music now this app works all the time on wifi without a problem! I’m so glad apple made the change. Why not rename it Apple Music remote?

This app has been a staple for home control of my music forever. However, it’s still limited to the music that I’m sharing over home sharing it will not allow me to pick up radio stations or channels that are offered by Apple Music or in the Apple Music library. For gods sake, it’s still called iTunes Remote. Apple: we love this ability and app. Isn’t it about time it became Apple Music Remote and allowed us to choose all the same great streams and music as Apple Music on the computer can?

I’ve been using this app for years. It’s a fantastic app for playing my music library from my iMac to my Apple TV’s. I have 4 older Apple TV’s in different rooms connected to audio sound systems. I also use 1 HomePod. I can control each room for what I want to play and the volume for each. One request, I wish this app was available for the Apple Watch.

I'd give the app 5 stars if they only included one extra function: the ability to search, and play music from Apple Music rather than what's "saved" to your library. I have my computer hooked up to a DAC, which is then connected to my HiFi system. The fact that you can only pause/fast forward music searched for on my computer (on Apple Music) is pretty ridiculous considering how well everything else in Apple's ecosystem works flawlessly.

I don’t understand how you can put out Lossless and not have a way to run it remotely. Obviously Airplay 2 doesn’t support full lossless so the best way to do it is hook a Mac up to your stereo through USB and use the stereo as a DAC. BUT this app doesn’t give access to Apple Music the SERVICE…it only allows access to what’s been added to the local library on that Mac. This app needs to work like Airplay or Apple needs to build a streamer that does work with Lossless and Airplay. I know I’m in the minority but this is a corner of the market that isn’t being served. Or just let Roon access Apple Music (again, the service).

everyday i try to use this app to control the Apple Music on my Mac Book Pro. if i can actually get it to connect it usually take near half and hour of trying to connect. if, and that is a very rare if, i am able to get it connected the app lags and will crash sometimes. then i either start the process over again or give up out of frustration. please fix this. an app is rarely perfect but i think it should work most of the time instead of almost never like this app.

My worry is that they stop supporting it. I use this to play music throughout my whole house. I have 10 Airport Express’ that control music in every room. I can turn off the music or adjust the volume with my iPad, iPhone, or my computer. I have five iPads mounted on the wall in several rooms so one doesn’t have to walk very far to adjust volume.

I was so happy to see that Apple has updated this to work with Music (formerly iTunes). It works with the latest version of Ventura. You just have to enable media sharing in the macOS system settings, then give the login for your iTunes Media account. It works!

One of my key apps on iPhone and iPad. Until I made a mistake and signed out of HomeSharing. I can’t sign in again. Yes, I can flip the switch to “green” - and it asks me if I want to sign in with my or some other Apple ID. Either way, this is the end. It’s not signing me in: The next time I re-start this app, the “home sharing” is off again. As a result, I can’t use it anymore to control my Apple TV (a music library I can add manually). Please fix this!

Pretty good app. Controls music play at the most basic level. where I personally dislike it is the way it switches to a full screen displaying just the one current song of a playlist. To get the whole list you have to use a back button. This is just a pain when you want to see and choose from many songs. If you don’t actively interact this way during listening then you probably won’t have any problems with this app.

I’ve been using this app since I first bought an iPhone 4s in 2011. It works flawlessly controlling a Mac with a music library on it. Albums, songs, artists, playlists, etc. They all work seamlessly. But regarding control of other devices playing music by way of an iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, etc — Forget About It! This app works reliably only one way: controlling music on a computer from your iOS device. It’s supposed to allow other devices to play music, but that “feature” is riddled with bugs. Always has been. Always will be. So do yourself a favor. Put all your music on your Mac, and use this app to play it. Don’t even consider other options, or you’ll wind up in a world of hurt.

The apple TV box has to be restarted frequently because the remote app stops recognizing the apple TV box frequently. When the remote app is connected and recognizes the apple TV box it works very well, just like the Siri remote device that comes with the apple TV box. But during use the remote app always forgets about the apple TV box and then the only way to get it to work is to restart the apple TV box. I'd use it instead of the actual remote if this bug was fixed.

We’ve come to rely on this app in lockdown. Only two bugs come to mind. iPhone Only: if we rate a song then the only way to rate another is to quit the app and restart. iPad only lots of artwork is missing unfortunately. It’s there in iTunes. I’ve found a labor-intensive workaround but it isn’t permanent. We’ve tried removing and reinstalling the apps but that doesn’t fix anything. That aside, it is largely reliable. I do have two requests: On iOS: allow split screen view. On iOS and iPadOS: be to either add more playlist management functionality and/or to remove the easy ability to delete playlists. We have lots of them (normal and smart) that are too easy to accidentally delete. On iTunes there’s an “are you sure” dialogue. Since there’s no undoing such deletion (I wish!), then this feels reckless.

It does so many things well, things other Apple apps could learn from. The ability to rate a song just by tapping the album art is great. The ability to easily navigate a mp3 library also. I wish it was able to shuffle albums, I wish I could change the view settings on playlists. Knowing apple will never touch it teaches me to accept the world is the way it is and my desires only serve to distance me from the way the world is.

I like this app, I really do. I like everything about the Remote app, but the side volume buttons on your phone should control the volume on your computer. That’s how it was when I had iPhone3. I miss that functionality. Don’t get me wrong. This app works perfectly. It doesn’t crash. It does what it supposed to. It just doesn’t do what a former version did, and I miss it.

The remote app has been a great application for nearly a decade. I feel as though this app can be improved by making the compatibility with Apple Music greater. For example, we are unable to search for songs that are not in our library and the controlled and customization is incredibly limited. It would be amazing if we could stream songs that were in our library as well as in Apple Music itself.

The reason the song oh ya from rotten tomatoes is perfect for an opening is because it’s talking about counterfeit and monte cristo. The reason the song remembered for is great is because it is showing they are thieving and are trying to be somebody’s. The song cannonballers is awesome for a heist is because it’s talking about the cannonballer thieves. I could put in more examples, but this is just enough.

Yes the app works again but it's sorting my Library items alphabetically instead of by Episode number. Super irritating to have to make a playlist or manually add episode numbers to the titles just for them to display in the correct order. At least give us a sorting option! It doesn't even match the macOS version display...keep it consistent Apple!!