ReadyNAS Duo -> Airport Express via iPad? SOLVED

[milko]

Hi,

I can't believe this can be a thing, but googling around and so on leads me only to people with the same problem back in 2008. Surely it's not impossible now, I'm hoping.

So:
MP3 library in media\music on the readynas. Firefly and ReadyDLNA running happily, if that's relevant.
Airport Express on the same network with nice connections to the hifi.
An iPad.

All I want, which seems like it ought to be a simple idea, is to use the iPad as a remote to play music from the NAS on my hifi. I can sort of get this to work by adding a PC running iTunes into the mix and using Remote on the iPad. It's a poor solution really. Is there not a better way? I want this to be wife-friendly, and starting up the PC and iTunes is not that.

Thanks.

[sleepy06405]

Unfortunately, no. I'm stuck in the same situation, I keep a machine running in the basement to feed my airport expresses and a use a couple old jailbroken iphone 3gs's as remotes.

You might be able to put the music on the ipad and play to the expresses. I remember reading apple was working on that. But its unlikely apple will ever add any sort of file sharing client into the ipad that will connect to shares on your nas.

[milko]

Actually it IS possible, not long after posting that I finally did it. iTunes really is a load of balls, isn't it.

There's an app called 8player. Third party, £2.99. Uses DLNA from the NAS and outputs audio to the airport express. So finally a solution that works! It can also do video and pics if that's of interest.

[sleepy06405]

Thats very cool and it'll work on my 3gs's. I will have to try it. Its $5 for the folks on the other side of the big pond.. Thanks!

[milko]

You're very welcome. There's a lite version of 8player too but I'm not sure that has the Airplay part enabled, so it only lets you check it can see the NAS and play from it on the iDevice.