Control iTunes and QuickTime with your iPhone Earbuds
This is a very cool feature I had no idea existed but accidentally stumbled across while on a recent flight. If you have an iPhone, you probably know that the earbuds included with it have a button to adjust volume and what not, well guess what, you can control the volume level in iTunes and QuickTime with the iPhone Earbud buttons as well! This works at least on the Unibody MacBook Pro’s, but I’m not sure if it works on the Unibody MacBook. Just plug in the iPhone earbuds to your Mac and launch QuickTime or iTunes to test it out yourself.
It’s also worth mentioning that the iPhone earbuds microphone works fine with Mac OS X too, and it makes a significantly better microphone than the one that is built in. This is particularly handy for VOIP calls through iChat, Google Voice, and Skype.
[…] Mac we tested, but all of them are fairly new. That said, we wrote about a similar trick quite some time ago in 2010 for volume controls indicating it’s been around at some extent for a while, but it […]
How do you use the Microphone?
You can also use this to control keynote. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090323143302443 (though i can only see this being useful if you are practicing your presentation in front of your laptop w/o a remote).
It just goes to show how much Apple loves to re-use their hardware and software implementations.
On most iPhones/iPod touches, Apple has utilized whatever type of mini-din jack that can also have a remote attached to it. I recall Griffin was one of the first with the iRemote, doubling as a FM radio. Many other people made similar setups over the years and even Apple has made one. Besides one extra “band” on the connector for a microphone/headphone setup (not sure if you could do this with a remote), that’s how most cellphones have done it, unless you try and delibertly force a person into using your setup because the connector is far-too recessed.