iPad + Airplay

The best new feature in the new iOS 4.2 update has to be Airplay. I don’t have Apple TV (so I can’t stream video) but we do have an Airport Express hooked up to our receiver. It was (and is) great for playing iTunes through the house, but with Airplay we can now play almost any audio app through our “good” speakers, including Pandora, Public Radio, and Concert Vault. Concert Vault in particular has a pretty substantial library of live recordings (I haven’t really explored it before today) and tonight my baking soundtrack was some live Clash from 1981.

Also, this seems to be changing our thinking of what a remote control could (or should) be. Perhaps the future of TV & entertainment center remotes will just be your iPad/iPhone or something similar, and less like the button-crazy remotes of today (like Sony’s controller for Google TV).