Air Tunes + Alarm Clock = Trouble

Occasionally, someone asks me about waking up to music on their Airport Express connected speakers using Air Tunes. Is this something you can add to Alarm Clock?

As I'm sure most people already know, Alarm Clock does not depend on iTunes to play it's music in the morning. This is one of those features that makes Alarm Clock stand out from the rest, and gives it rock solid stability. For more information on why it's important that an alarm clock application not depend on iTunes, check out my FAQ, question #2.
http://www.robbiehanson.com/alarmclock/faq.html

Now, concerning Air Tunes:

Unfortunately, the API to play music wirelessly over Airport Express is kept secret by Apple. In other words, they have decided to use the functionality only within iTunes, and not allow 3rd party developers to use the technology. So, for the time being, this is not a built-in feature of Alarm Clock.

However, this is one of those features that may not actually be a good idea for an alarm clock. Sending the music wirelessly to a set of speakers adds a degree of uncertainty. If another computer is connected to the speakers, it will fail. If the network has problems, it will fail. If there is some kind of radio interference, it will fail. These are all problems you won't see if you use your built-in speakers, or a set of speakers that are hardwired to your computer. Also, many people who use Air Tunes (maybe not you, but many other users) have their Airport Express connected to a home theater system. This also means that before you go to bed you have to make sure to switch your audio receiver from TV or DVD over to the correct setting to allow music from your computer to play. A problem that most users never have to worry about when using a set of speakers dedicated to their computer.

Now, it may be possible for Alarm Clock to recover from some of the above scenarios. If the connection to the speakers fails, it could just play the audio on the built-in speakers. But herein lies the problem. Anybody who would go through all the extra trouble and effort to configure their alarm clock to play to another set of speakers wirelessly probably has a reason to do so. And that reason is probably because their computer speakers aren't loud enough to wake them up, or their computer is in another room, and too far away to be loud in the bedroom. So if the Air Tunes failed in either of the above scenarios, it means disaster for the user. If the computer isn't in your bedroom, or doesn't have built-in or attached speakers loud enough to wake you up, it's probably not a good idea to use it as an alarm clock anyway. (And then there are those users who would use the feature just because of the cool factor...)

So even if Apple decided to make public the API to use Air Tunes, I would have to think long and hard before implementing it in Alarm Clock. In many aspects, it's like giving users a gun to shoot themselves in the foot with. There are many other software alarm clocks on the market that put the importance of features far and above stability and dependability. Alarm Clock 2 is not one of them.

I should point out that there IS an application on the market that will allow you to use Alarm Clock and have the audio play wirelessly via Air Tunes. The product is called Airfoil, and you can find out more about it here:
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/

But please remember that Apple's API is still private. Which means that this application works because they've managed to hack Apple's API (as far as I know). If Apple decides to change anything in the future, this product may stop working. And then there are all the other problems with playing music wirelessly that I pointed out above.

As always, I'm welcome to criticism. So if you disagree with anything I said, or you just have a different perspective about something, feel free to let me know.