Just about 1 month ago I moved from using Mindola's PatioTunes to Alloysoft's Signal for controlling my 5 room AirTunes setup remotely with an iPhone via Wifi. I was surprised that Signal works so much better. It's so quick, it looks so beautiful, it has features that I was requesting from PatioTunes about 18 months ago - song rating -, so for me this was the software I have been waiting for.

Similar to PatioTunes, Signal works by running its own little http server on your mac, and any http client (browser) connected to that server can remote control iTunes functionality, such as ping a new song, album or playlist to play, etc. Typically any PDA or smartphone with wifi access connects to your local wifi network when you are at home - hence if you have one, you are ready to go. Using Apple AirTunes the music of iTunes can stream into various rooms completely in sync, and hence replace a Sonos system which during my comparison was at least twice as expensive for 5 rooms - and a Mac mini as the living room's media center can do so much more than just music.

Using Signal from the iPhone looks best and works really fast. You can tell that the web interface is made for the device. I don't have an iPod Touch, but I guess it is the same experience. So how does it look like on other devices with other browsers? Well, any request will bring up a virtual iPhone in your browser and then work just the same. Hence the remote control from any laptop works great, too. Good stuff! I also tested the access from a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet - which by default also goes to the virtual iPhone screen - and would require a bit of scrolling up and down. But then, even better, just by changing the URL from http://macmini:3569/iphone/phone.html to http://macmini:3569/iphone/ I was able to get the normal iPhone content full screen on the N800 - which works great, too.

If you are a 10.4 Tiger user, make sure to set up the Signal TCP port 3569 in the firewall. The installation does not mention that, but it's a topic on the FAQ page: http://www.alloysoft.com/support.html

Last thing to mention: you can try out Signal with no strings attached. Full functionality, just every 3rd item in the interface is not available. After putting in the key, full content becomes available immediately. No affiliation, just a happy user.