WiFi2HiFi App Review: Music Streaming from PC to iPhone

WiFi2HiFi App Review: Music Streaming from PC to iPhone
Page content

What is WiFi2HiFi for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad?

WiFi2HiFi Interface

WiFi2HiFi, in a nutshell, allows you to stream audio from your PC (Personal Computer) to your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad with ease. This audio can then be played through your stereo, sound-dock or headphones by attaching your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to these higher definition devices.

Basically WiFi2HiFi will enable you to play your music library, streaming radio and more without the need to copy these items to your mobile device. Once your mobile device is connected to your PC via the WiFi2HiFi Station and WiFi2HiFi iPhone application, any audio that is played on your PC will also be streamed to your mobile device.

Features (5 out of 5)

WiFi2Hifi Station Mac

The feature list for this application is fairly small. This is in no way a bad thing because WiFi2HiFi has been designed to perform a very specific function, to stream audio from your PC to your high-definition devices throughout your house. With WiFi2HiFi installed on your iPhone and the WiFi2HiFi Station installed on your PC your iPhone will automatically be detected so there is very little to do there.

Stream quality is one setting you do have control over in the WiFi2HiFi Station. You can choose either a standard quality stream or a high quality stream depending on your preference and Wi-Fi connection. This is a nice feature because not all audio you will want to stream is high quality to begin with, so there is no point in wasting bandwidth with a high quality stream. This feature also lets you adjust the quality based on how fast your Wi-Fi connection is. A higher quality stream will take more of the available bandwidth over your Wi-Fi network than the standard quality stream.

As I said above, the feature list for this application is small, but during my time using this application I haven’t found myself saying “I wish X feature was available to me”. The application does what it’s designed to do and, in my opinion, too many fluff features would detract from the application. This is why I was able to give WiFi2HiFi 5/5 for features even though it has very few… Its main feature is allowing you to stream audio from your PC to your mobile device and it does this well.

Functionality (4 out of 5)

WiFi2HiFi - Mac PC to iPhone to Stereo

In most applications I tried, WiFi2HiFi was able to stream the audio from my Mac to my iPhone with ease, with one exception… the Last.FM audio scrobbler for Mac. When I played music from within the Last.FM scrobbler for Mac it was not picked up by the WiFi2HiFi Station and sent to WiFi2HiFi on my iPhone. I tried this on two different Mac computers with the same result… no audio.

That being said WiFi2HiFi was able to pick up all other sound from my Mac and send it to my iPhone. This includes the basic Mac OS X sounds as well as iTunes and anything I streamed through Safari. I’m sure there are dozens of other Mac OS X applications that WiFi2HiFi will stream audio from but iTunes and Safari are probably the two most important for Mac users.

If you have any experience with WiFi2HiFi and other Windows or Mac programs please leave a comment below and let us know how it fared.

Overall Rating (5 out of 5)

WiFi2HiFi Icon HR

I’ll be honest, before being contacted to do this review of WiFi2HiFi I had no experience with it and (thought) I had no need for an application like this. After using this application on a daily basis I now know I was wrong (about not needing it) and am now a loyal WiFi2HiFi user. This application has allowed me to trim the amount of audio I have to copy to my iPhone before connecting it to my stereo for high definition playback, it has allowed me to play an iTunes radio stream on my Mac and then stream it directly to my iPhone and finally it has reduced the amount of wires I have to run in order to get sound from my Mac PC to my stereo system.

The WiFi2HiFi iPhone application will run you $3.99 while the WiFi2HiFi Station software for your Windows or Mac PC is provided free of charge. I see this is a reasonable price due to the fact that the application performed flawlessly (minus the glitch with the Last.FM scrobbler for Mac) for me on my Wi-Fi network using my Mac PC and iPhone. How did I live without this application for so long?

If you are a Windows or Mac user who loves to access your audio files and Internet radio stations all over your house or office you really can’t go wrong with WiFi2HiFi from Clever and Sons.

Have any experience with WiFi2HiFi? Love it? Hate it? Let us know in the comments section below!

References