Author | Thread |
User 03.02.2009 19:45:13 | Connect iPhone to Macbook via closed Airport Express network? | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. Hello. I've been using RB for a number of years now and finally had a chance to use the iPhone/AJAX feature and I have to tell you, I'm blown away! So much so that within 5 minutes, it's become THE TOOL for presentations in our studio!!! Now, we have one issue — offsite presentations! Because we can't be sure what kind of wireless connections we're going to have when doing offsite presentations (and setting up the Macbook to create it's own wifi is too complicated for those doing these presentations), I'm wondering if anyone could tell me if this option would work? If I were to purchase an Apple Airport Express (portable base station), even though it wouldn't be connected "online", it should be able to be set up to create a mini-private wireless network between the Macbook and the iPhone — this way, all that would be needed would be to connect each device to this network and we're good to go for AJAX control of the Macbook via the iPhone! Does anyone see any issues with this? Regards, Kristin.
| These entries from the FAQ may be relevant to this topic: Hardware - Apple® Remote
To enable you to use all capabilities of the IR Receiver of your Mac®, Remote Buddy is using its own driver. In contrast, all other applications with integrated Apple® Remote support usually use the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.
As long as you're running Remote Buddy, Remote Buddy and its driver are responsible for turning the received button presses into actions. As soon as you quit Remote Buddy, this task is again handled by the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem.
If other applications don't use the interface to the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem correctly, this can lead to the effect that nothing happens when you press a button on your Apple® Remote. For as long as you're running Remote Buddy, issues like this are covered by Remote Buddy and it's driver and are therefore not visible to you. However, as soon as you quit Remote Buddy, the OS X Apple® Remote subsystem is back in control and any issues caused in it by other applications become visible.
Therefore Remote Buddy is neither the cause of the issue nor is it responsible for it. Instead, the cause of the issue exists independently of Remote Buddy. It's located elsewhere and can also only be solved there.
Although our products can't cause any such issues, we're regularly contacted about such issues and asked for help. In order to make locating and fixing the cause of such issues as easy and efficient as possible, we've developed a free diagnostics tool: Remote Control Diagnostics. It can locate issues with a single click and will provide you with information about the issue as well as with instructions on how you can fix it.
Hardware - iPhone™ / iPod® touch / AJAX Remote In order to configure your Mac as a WLAN base station, please follow these steps:
- Open your System Preferences and click on "Sharing"
- Under "Share your connection from", choose i.e. "Ethernet" or "Firewire", but not "AirPort®". In this example, we've chosen "Ethernet". No connectivity must exist over the chosen port. However, if there is a connection on that port, it will also be accessible via the WLAN network we are about to create.
- Check the checkbox in front of the "AirPort®" entry in the list titled "To computers using"
- Now click on the "AirPort® options" button, set a name for your WLAN, activate encryption and set a password. The password should be either 5 or 13 characters long for compatibility reasons. Click on "OK" once you've made your settings.
- In the left list, check the checkbox in front of "Internet Sharing". The name "Internet Sharing" can be misleading, as no internet connection is required for it to work. In fact, the chosen network connections are being shared, regardless of whether that network is part of or connected to the internet or not.
- On your iPhone™ / iPod® Touch, you can now join the WLAN and open the AJAX Remote on your device's Safari™ by entering its URL (to be found in Remote Buddy > Preferences > AJAX Remote).
Important notice: You may encounter connection reliability issues using Internet Sharing with OS X versions prior to 10.5.2 when your Mac® has built-in 802.11n hardware und is used in combination with 802.11b/g hardware (like the iPhone™ and iPod® Touch). This appears to be a bug in the AirPort® driver of OS X. It appears to have been fixed in OS X 10.5.2 and later.
Thanks for your interest in the future of Remote Buddy. Of course the iPhone™ SDK is also of interest to us.
Please understand, though, that we don't talk about future products or plans prior to to their close-to-complete-realization or release.
If you want to stay up to date on this topic, we recommend to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter or RSS feed (find all links at the footer of the product page). News will be available here, first.
These are the most frequent causes for this kind of problem are:
- The AJAX Remote is not active. Please check in Remote Buddy's preferences, that you have enabled the AJAX Remote and that it shows the status "active".
- The OS X firewall is active and blocking incoming connections. Please read the entry "How can I define a rule to allow access to port 8888 with active Firewall?" for a step-by-step howto for fixing this problem.
- Bonjour® only works LAN-wide. In order to reach your computer by its Bonjour® name, it needs to be located in the same IP subnet - which in this case means that it must be connected to the same WiFi network. If your computer is connected to the same LAN (wired connection) as the WiFi Access Point, but not to the WiFi Access Point itself, your computer and your device are located in different subnets, whereas Bonjour® services usually can't be announced beyond the boundaries of subnets. Furthermore, the iPhone™ does only support Bonjour® addresses starting with firmware version 1.1.1. Older firmware releases can't make any sense of them.
The solution - in both cases - is to directly enter the IP of your computer on your device. Complete URLs for all network connections/interfaces of your computer can be found directly within Remote Buddy under "Preferences > AJAX Remote".
- A firewall / router does not forward connections. If you are trying to access your computer from the Internet, only a direct connection using the IP of your internet connection is possible.
- If your computer has a direct connection to the Internet without any intermediate router, Remote Buddy will show the correct IP address of your computer under "Preferences > AJAX Remote".
- If your computer is connected to the Internet through an intermediate router, only that router knows your current IP on the Internet. Furthermore, you need to make sure, that it forward connections to port 8888 to your computer. Please consult the manual of your computer to learn whether your router supports that function and how you can set it up.
- Our service for you: you can let our server tell you your current Internet IP at http://www.iospirit.com/myip/.
| User 04.02.2009 11:45:17 | Re: Connect iPhone to Macbook via closed Airport Express network? | |
This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information. Thanks for your feedback. The AirPort Express can be used as a portable base station to connect your iPhone and Mac and control your Mac using AJAX Remote on your iPhone. We've been using it ourselves for that purpose at Mac Live Expo 2007. Best regards, Felix Schwarz
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