How to control music in your car from your iPhone/iPod Touch using the Apple Remote App

Posted by thescragster on Dec 14, 2010 in Apple TV 1G, Apple TV 2G, In Car Mods, Mods, Tutorials, Tutorials | 1 comment

Earlier today I bought an original Apple TV. When I was looking for available hacks for the origanal Apple TV (something we are looking to add here at AppleTVBlogr.com sometime in the future) I came across this.

This is an overview tutorial on how to control the music in your car using the Remote app on your iPhone. This will work for both the Apple TV 1G (original) and the Apple TV 2G (when external storage has been enabled). This isn’t all that practical, I am sure there are more efficent methods of doing this, but how many people can say they have an Apple TV in their car? It is a bit of an overkill in hardware to enable a simple feature, but who cares – it’s awesome!

What you need:

• Apple TV (ether original or 2G (when external storage has been enabled))
• iPhone or iPod Touch or even iPad, any model
• Airport express (or a wireless router/modem)
• Car power inverter (170W used in the tutorial we are following) (I live in New Zealand but from what I understand you can pick on of these up for around $20USD, correct me if I am wrong on this)
• Car stereo with ether RCA input at the back or headphone (3.5mm) input in the front

Example of a car power inverter used to power Apple TV and Airport Express

Software:

• Basically just the Apple Remote app for your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, click here for a download link.

How To:

First of all, sync your Apple TV with iTunes (or in the Apple TV 2G case, when external storage has been enabled, copy your music files to your external drive)

Connect your power inverter to the car and plugin both the Apple TV and the Airport Express

Plug the audio output from the Apple TV into your car stereo. For the Apple TV, just use a RCA to RCA connection into the back of your stereo (or use a RCA to 3.5mm if needed). For Apple TV 2G you will need to find a converter that will convert Optical Audio to RCA, then plug this into the connections in the back of your stereo.

Start your car and wait a few moments for the Apple TV and Airport Express to turn on

Now simply set your stereo to the input your Apple TV is connected to (in most cases AUX) and using the Remote app impress all your friends by controlling the music using the Remote app!

Extras:

If you want to go to the extreme, you could install a touch screen monitor (or standard screen) into your dashboard which acted as a monitor and control unit for the Apple TV instead of using the Remote app. Something similar to this for example:

Let us know how you get on and if you have any problems. I myself have not tried this but I see no reason why it wouldn’t work. We would love to hear from you if you give this a go! Please leave a comment below.