How to Remote Control iTunes From Your iPhone or iPod Touch

Remote controlling iTunes from your iPod touch or iPhone has its advantages. Like, it could help you easily shuffle songs when you are hosting a small party and using your computer to play music. It basically eliminates the need to be at your computer to manage iTunes.

I knew Apple had this app called Remote for getting the remote control thing done, but never bothered to check it out until I visited my friend Praval the other day. He was using it, and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw how smoothly it worked over Wi-Fi. Knowing about something is one thing, experiencing it first hand is another.

Back home, I decided to set it up on my iPod touch. This article sums up each and every step that’s involved in the process.

Here we go.

Step 1. Open iTunes, go to the AppStore and search for “remote”.

Step 2. The description page of the app will come up. As you can see, the app is free and also lets you control Apple TV remotely.

Step 3. iTunes will ask you to sign in to download the app, if you aren’t already.

Step 4. It’ll start downloading the app.

Step 5. Once the download is done, you can connect the device (iPhone or iPod touch) to your computer and sync it with iTunes.

Step 6. You should now see the app on your iOS device.

Step 7. Go to the app. You’ll find an option to Add an iTunes Library. There’s also a home sharing option that lets you share this functionality with iTunes on some other computer. We will talk about that in another post. For now, lets focus on adding the iTunes library.

Step 8. When you select that option, it’ll show you a passcode. Note this down because you’ll need it to connect the iTunes library to your iDevice.

Step 9. Now, lets go back to iTunes. There, as you see below, you will find another iPod touch option below DEVICES that has the sign of the remote app beside it. Click on it.

Step 10. This is where you enter the passcode you obtained in Step 8.

Step 11. Passcode added, and you’re done!

Step 12. You should now have your entire iTunes library in your Remote app. You can choose a song, and it automatically starts playing in iTunes on your computer. Neat, isn’t it?

If, at first, you find that the remote app is not able to locate your library even after adding the passcode, just restart iTunes as well as the iDevice. It should be all good then.

Two obvious things to note: 1. You should have Wi-Fi in order for it to work. and 2. iTunes should be opened first on the computer. You cannot start iTunes from this app.

Hope that helps. If you know of some cool tricks associated with this app, or iTunes, jump in with your suggestions in the comments.