Hands On: Apple Remote 2.OH YES!

We have been waiting for this one for a long time, but here it is: Apple Remote 2.0 is now available at the Apple Store. And oh boy, it’s dee-lish on the iPad.

The new version is optimised for the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch, as well as for the iPad, with its own interface. It also supports shared libraries and the new Apple TV (I couldn’t try it with the new Apple TV because I haven’t got mine yet, but I can only imagine that it will work just the same).

Hands On

Apple Remote is one of my favourite iOS applications. Simple and easy to use, it does just what it says it does: remotely access your media libraries and play your songs or videos. However, it didn’t work natively on the iPad, running in blown-up pixelated iPhone mode, and it didn’t supported the iPhone 4 and new iPod touch’s Retina Display. It needed an update badly, and here it is.

On the iPad
The new version works flawlessly on the iPad, and also on the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 and the new iPod Touch. On the iPad, it looks very much like the native iPod application, including the ability to create playlists remotely, as well as Genius playlists on the fly. When you do this, you can see the interface on the desktop iTunes changing automagically.

My only complaint is that I can’t drag and drop songs to playlists whenever I want, just like you can’t do that in the native iPod application. I can’t understand why Apple doesn’t enable this feature, which would allow you to populate lists dynamically as you explore songs, instead of making you enter in edit mode and go through artists and songs.

On the iPhone
The iPhone version’s interface has been polished too, showing the Genius Mix option in the first tab. Otherwise, the user interface feels very similar to Remote 1.0. And that’s good. Why change what already works?

The new Apple Remote 2.0 works flawlessly and looks pretty. If you have an iPad, it feels like having a lean and fast version of iTunes on a touch screen. On the iPhone, it works like before, but looks better.

Go get it. [iTunes Store]