thoughton:digitallife Build your own Salling Clicker

Build your own Salling Clicker

The Unofficial Apple Weblog commented on a very interesting MacDevCenter article today detailing how to control iTunes from an internet-enabled mobile phone via a WAP browser and OS X's built-in Apache webserver. Great stuff, but hang on a minute ...

If you already own the incredible Salling Clicker, you're probably wondering what all the fuss is about. With Clicker you can already do everything described in the article without typing a single line of code. Furthermore you can view album art and playlists on the phone, which really has to be seen to be appreciated. And to top it all off it's not only iTunes - Clicker also has controls for iPhoto, DVD Player, Keynote and PowerPoint, as well as numerous third party plugins (admittedly of varying quality).

Given the all-round awesomeness of Clicker, it was the ability to script apps other than iTunes that really intrigued me about the MacDevCenter article. One such use I will be looking into is toggling P800 Manager's internet sharing. Since Clicker can activate the BlueTooth connection from the phone, this would eliminate the need to physically visit your Mac to start P800 Manager's internet sharing. It may be that P800 Manager is not scriptable, in which case I'll be looking into applescripts which enable internet sharing over bluetooth.

Back to the MacDevCenter article, the use of a web interface was also interesting - on the plus side it is not range-limited like the BlueTooth-based Clicker is, but on the down side internet access on a phone costs money (quite a lot in most cases). I suppose if you have an unusually large home the web interface may be the best option, but I for one cannot imagine any other need for the greater range.

One free alternative that comes to mind is sharing your Mac's internet via BlueTooth to access the web from your phone, all in order to surf to your Mac's webserver and control iTunes. How's that for convoluted? But we're now back to limited BlueTooth range, which kind of defeats the purpose. I think I'll be sticking with Salling Clicker, at least for iTunes control.