Moving tips #103 iCloud means music while you pack

We are 90% packed. The fact that I did 90% of the packing is another story. Now that everything is disconnected, I was playing music on my iPad. But wait! The Apple TV is plugged into the TV. Wifi is still up. All my music is on iCloud. I am back in business picking song from my 500GB music collection.

How to use the new iOS4.3 HomeSharing on your iPhone

With the new iOS4.3 firmware, HomeSharing finally work nicely across all device. This is particularly important if you have an second generation AppleTV in your home network. Will all the new sharing feature you can do two really cool things:

1. You can finally show any video or pictures from your iPhone on your AppleTV, especially photos and video from your camera roll on the phone. Isn't this the normal use case? You took some pictures of the kids, and when you are at Grandma's house, you can now beam the pictures onto their LCD TV seamlessly. (You did buy the grandparents an AppleTV, didn't you?)
2. You can, via HomeSharing, listen to any music on your home iTunes library on your iPhone/iPad. Typically in a house hold, you will have most of the shared music and video sitting on an iMac. Now you can listen to any music from there remotely.

How to enable HomeSharing on your phone? There are actually TWO different settings. Go to "Settings / iPod" and enter your Apple ID for sharing. Then you can stream music from any iTunes library on your home network to the iPhone/iPad.

Secondly you can also enable Home Sharing on the Remote app. (you did download that didn't you?) Enter your Apple ID there, then it will automatically find any iTunes library on your network without you having to manually link the remote app to the library.

Tip: The remote app now also can control the AppleTV user interface!

iPhone plus AirPlay and AppleTV

I do not have an iPad. That's right. I am waiting for the iPad2. But I ordered the AppleTV on announcement date. And now with AirPlay fully supported (after a system update on both the iPhone 3GS and the AppleTV) it is media heaven. What works?

• on the iPhone 3GS, I can play a movie on the "ipod" app directly onto my AppleTV
• the rdio app can stream all my rdio music directly onto my AppleTV -- this is a big win. Now I can stream everything that rdio has in the cloud to my main home theatre system. My $10/month subscription is getting full mileage
• the YouTube app on the iPhone can also send video to the AppleTV. This is slightly redundent, as there is direct YouTube support on the AppleTV. But I can use the keyboard on my iPhone to find video faster.
• update: the pictures on the camera roll can go to the apple TV by using the airplay icon (Thanks to lance's comment below)

What does not work?

• I cannot figure out how to send a picture in my "camera roll" to the AppleTV
• Hulu+ app does not support AirPlay -- This is a big lost for me. I don't know if it is Hulu that needs to update their app, or is Apple not allowing it to do so.
• NPR News app does not support AirPlay either. It would be cool if it did.

So, after 30 minutes of playing, I'd keep to my original point -- this is truly revolutionary, even if most of you don't know it yet!

My AppleTV is coming from Hong Kong

Just got my AppleTV shipping update ! Yes I ordered it hours after it was announced. Funny bit is -- it is coming from Lan Tau Island Hong Kong, and I know exactly where that is since I lived there.