A few months ago HomePipe launched a service which lets you access file stored on your PC or Mc using an iPhone or Android device. I took a look at the service as part of my roundup of cloud-based storage apps for Android.
This week the company rolled out a new feature which lets you stream music from your computer to your phone.
Probably the niftiest feature of HomePipe is that there’s almost no setup required. You just install the desktop app and install the mobile app and login to both with your username and password. You don’t have to configure which folders your music collection is stored in, because HomePipe lets you browse all the folders on your PC.
On the other hand, it would be kind of nice if you could designated a few favorite folders to make navigation easier.
The biggest problem I encountered with the new music streaming is that it was hit or miss. The first time I tried to stream a song from my Windows XP laptop to my Android phone, it worked beautifully. And that was the last time that was true. Most of my successive attempts were met with a buffering notice. Every now and then a song would start to play. But before I could even snap a screenshot, playback would stop and the buffering would start again. Your results may vary.
HomePipe is available as a free download from the Android Market. You can also download HomePipe Free or HomePipe Premium for the iPhone from the App Store.
http://www.subsonic.org will blow you away.
Home Pipe is a fantastic app. But I think this will not replace my WIFI2HIFI app: http://www.wifi2hifi.com/ as my preferred music choice.
The wifi2hifi iPhone app works similarly. The good thing is that you can use your preferred audio player – any audio output is sent to the iPhone.