When I listen to my music at home I normally connect my iPhone to my amplifier with the 3.5mm Jack, open iTunes on the iPhone and press “Play” on any song I’m in the mood for. Then I walk over to the couch, lay back and relax. When the song is over I head over to the iPhone again, choose an other song, press play and listen to that song.
Now one solution for not always walking from the iPhone to the couch is playlists 
but with playlists it isn’t possible to play exactly THAT particular song you’re in the mood for. That was a long description to introduce a nice solution for remote controlling music on an iDevice: Tango Remote
Two iOS devices
A Tango cannot be danced alone, It tales 2 persons to dance a Tango; and Tango Remote needs 2 iOS devices to work. Like I’ve said, I’ve got my music on my iPhone; With Tango Remote it is possible to Remote Controle the music I’ve got on my iPhone from my iPad.
First thing you’d have to do is to install TangoRemote on both iOS devices. The application is optimized for both iPhone (or iPod Touch) and iPad so there’s only one version. On start Tango Remote will ask if the device is the “Music Player” or the “Remote Control”
The device which is selected as “Music Player” will launch a shot scan through your music and then let you select the song you’d like to play.
The device which is selected as “Remote Control” will ask which device in the same WLAN should be controlled. After selecting a device to control the party is on. Pick a song and the “Music Player” will play the selected song.
Perfect harmony
When the devices are connected with Tango Remote, there’s clearly a perfect harmony between the devices. The “Music Player” has most of the functions the iTunes player also has. So it’s still possible to for example skip the song, select another album etc. only on just the “Music Player”, the real power of Tango Remote comes obviously with the second device.
With the second device you’re able to control everything you’d possibly like to control when it comes to a music player. I always use the Remote Control on my iPad in Landscape mode, but it also has a portrait mode.
In the landscape mode you’ll see the current song playing, song scrubbing, randomize, repeat, previous song, next song, play/pause and volume control. You’ll also see the album art of the current song, and the different kind of song selection. You can select songs based on Playlist, Songs, Artist, Albums and Genres.
To show how well the harmony between iOS devices is when using Tango Remote, I’ve made a screenshot on the iPhone and on the iPad at the exact same time. Below are both screenshots:
The first image is of the iPhone version while playing “Californication” by the Red Hot Cili Peppers. As you can see, all the common controls are also visible on the Music Player.
At the exact same time I also took a screenshot of the iPad version:
As You can see; All the important controls are also available on the “Remote” device.
Integration with iTunes
Now something I really like is the integration with the iOS iTunes player. Let’s have the next example in mind: You’re going for a nice bike ride or walk accompanied with the iPhone as your music player. You’re listening the music with the iTunes application.When you arrive home, you’d like to continue listening to the song which is just playing, so you connect your iPhone to your amplifier, but also want to Remote Control your iPhone’s music.
Tango Remote enables you to do this. Tango Remote picks up the music playing in iTunes and continues to play it without any hick-ups.
One small downside that I’ve found is that Tango Remote doesn’t exactly shows the correct information when the music is picked up from iTunes.
Concluding thoughts & Wrap-up
Tango Remote has definitely managed to get a good position on my ‘Must-have’ iPhone/iPad applications. When showing off your iPhone and/or iPad Tango Remote is an application you could show anyone and everybody would be thrilled about the possibilities. In my opinion Tango Remote is even more than that: It’s the standard for Apps when it comes down to connecting two iOS devices.
Tango Remote can be downloaded for free in the iTunes Store
