homesharing
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Paris sues Airbnb over illegal rental ads
France is determined to prevent home sharing services from allowing makeshift hotels, and that now includes court action. The city of Paris is suing Airbnb over 1,000 ads it says violate a law designed to limit homeowners to renting their places for no more than 120 days per year. It's not clear just what terms the ads violated, but French law requires a registration number inside those ads to ensure they aren't venturing past the 120-day mark. The aim is to "send a shot across the bows" and end near-constant rentals that "spoil some Parisian neighborhoods," city mayor Anne Hidalgo told Le Journal du Dimanche in an interview.
Airbnb buys startup to help you find disability-friendly rentals
Airbnb knows its hosts haven't always been kind to people with disabilities, and it's taking some definitive steps to fix that weakness. The company just bought Accomable, a startup that helps you embark on disability-friendly travel. While Accomable is winding down over the months ahead, its accommodation listings will find their way into Airbnb's entries for over 60 countries. You'll know if a host really does have accommodations for disabled guests throughout the home, not just wheelchair access at the entry. Also, Airbnb is pursuing its own improvements to help you make more informed choices.
Plans Matter offers Airbnb-like listings for architecture nerds
Google is working on adding vacation rentals to its hotel search results and Airbnb is going to help you find national park-adjacent rentals, mansions and penthouses. But if those options are quite special enough for you, a website called Plans Matter might be up your alley. Started by architects Lindor and Scott Mueller, Plans Matter only lists modern houses designed by respected architects. Writing on the website, the couple says, "When we plan our travel, we search for places to stay that are well designed and authentic. Places that will elevate our experience beyond keeping us warm and dry. Places that have architectural intention and a story to tell. Our goal is to make these places easily available for people to experience on their own."
Airbnb and NAACP partner to boost minority-hosted rentals
Airbnb is doing everything it can to repair its image after a racist host cancelled a reservation earlier this month. The next step of that is to help people of color rent out their homes or spare rooms. "Under the new partnership, Airbnb and the NAACP will conduct targeted outreach to communities of color to help more people use their homes to earn extra income," the NAACP writes.
Airbnb plans to rent out mansions and penthouses this year
Not content to simply point people in the direction of national parks, it sounds like Airbnb will now offer the well-heeled even more luxurious places to stay. Codenamed Airbnb Lux, the short-term rental service will soon offer penthouses and mansions if its tests are successful, according to Bloomberg's sources. Supposedly, the housing stock comes from Airbnb's purchase of Luxury Retreats earlier this year.
Hotels pressure the government to crack down on Airbnb
There's no doubt that the hotel industry hates Airbnb -- the home sharing service lures many would-be customers away through lower rates and the perks that come from staying in someone else's abode. So how does it fight back? By pushing the government to crack down. The New York Times has learned that the American Hotel and Lodging Association has been conducting a "multipronged, national" lobbying and research campaign to have politicians impose or toughen restrictions, selectively collect taxes and draw attention to the negative side-effects of home sharing. Reportedly, the AHLA is partly responsible for at least some of the higher-profile regulatory moves against Airbnb in the past year.
Airbnb hopes to redesign small towns
For Airbnb, it's not enough to try to shape city policies on home sharing -- it wants to shape the cities themselves. The service tells FastCo Design that it has created an innovation lab, Samara, whose aims include rethinking architecture and urban planning. If Airbnb can spark new life in small towns, the reasoning goes, it can create "new types of commerce" and attract more rentals to areas that might be on the decline. Samara's initial effort is a communal housing project for the small Japanese town of Yoshino (due to open soon after its October arrival), but there's talk of similar work for other small towns as well as new product designs, software and "economic models."
Apple's Home Sharing for music returns in latest iOS 9 beta (update: public beta 2)
Well, would you look at that. Not long after it was reported that Apple had killed Home Sharing for music in iOS 8.4, the company appears to be ready to bring the feature back to life. As MacRumors points out, Home Sharing for music is now included in the fourth beta of iOS 9 for developers -- sorry, public testers, this isn't for you. Apple's SVP of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, said earlier this month that his team was working on restoring the feature, even though there was no indication of when that would be happening. But now it's here, so go have at it if you're part of the iOS dev program. Update 7/22: A day later, Apple has released a second iOS 9 public beta that gives you Home Sharing and other fixes from the latest developer version.
Apple will bring back Home Sharing for music on iOS 9
It sucks that Home Sharing for music isn't available on iOS 8.4, but don't worry -- Apple isn't permanently getting rid of the feature to boost its Music subscriptions. Eddy Cue, the company's SVP of Internet Software and Services, has divulged on Twitter that he and his team are working on bringing it back on iOS 9. He made the revelation on the social network as a response to this amusing tweet: "Hey @cue, I hope I don't have to be @taylorswift13 to get you to restore Home Sharing for music!"
Apple kills Home Sharing for music in iOS 8.4
The arrival of Apple Music has been much-celebrated, but for it to live, the company appears to have killed-off Home Sharing from iOS. The feature enabled you to stream tunes from your desktop (i.e. where your collection is) over your home network to a local iPod, iPhone or iPad. Unfortunately, as AppleInsider reports, that offering has now been pulled, so you'll have to postpone any impromptu kitchen parties that you had planned. Interestingly, the change only affects music playback, since you can still share video to nearby iDevices.
What you need to know about Airbnb's legal challenges
Currently, there are over 800,000 Airbnb listings in more than 34,000 cities and 190 countries. With upwards of 20 million guests, it's safe to say that Airbnb has nestled its way into the hearts of many a traveler. It's really not surprising that the masses have been charmed by Airbnb, right? Because as exciting as it is to make travel plans for, say, a vacation, there's always that little tinge of anxiety about leaving the comforts of home (at least for some of us). But Airbnb offers something to assuage that anxiety by allowing you to stay in another person's home. No, this is not the same as being in your own space, but some might argue that it's more comforting than the sometimes methodical feel of a hotel. And the icing on the cake? While you're away on your vacation, Airbnb allows you to make some money with your empty space – also known as hosting. Airbnb's story is not just "unique travel experiences," affordable prices and monetizing your unused space. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the audience), there are laws in place that are meant to limit when, where and how you can list your space.
How to enable Home Sharing on Mac and iOS devices
My wife and I both have an iPhone and a Mac. We also have an Apple TV in our living room. However, sharing our iTunes content (movies, music, books, apps, etc.) between these devices can be tricky, especially since we regularly hot swap our Macs and iPhones for general purposes, depending on whatever device is nearer. Thankfully, Apple has made this a whole lot easier with Home Sharing, particularly with the latest version in iOS 4.3. Using the same Wi-Fi connection, Home Sharing allows you to share all the media on the iTunes libraries in your home with each other, and with your iOS devices. Here's how to enable Home Sharing in your home. First, make sure you have the latest version of iTunes on all the Macs in your home. Second, make sure you have the latest version of iOS on all the iOS devices in your home. Don't forget this includes your Apple TV if you have one. Once you've done all the updates, go to iTunes and enable Home Sharing by simply clicking on Advanced > Turn on Home Sharing. You'll be prompted to enter your Apple ID (for complete instructions visit this Apple tutorial). Now, enable Home Sharing on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad by tapping on Setting > iPod and entering the same Apple ID you used on your Mac under the Home Sharing heading (for complete instructions visit this Apple tutorial). Make sure you also enable Home Sharing on your Apple TV by using the same Apple ID, too (for complete instructions visit this Apple tutorial). The main thing to remember here is that you must use the same Apple ID when enabling Home Sharing on all the various devices in your household, otherwise it won't work.
iOS 4.3 spotlight: iTunes Home Sharing
iOS 4.3 is now available for download, and along with it comes iTunes Home Sharing -- the ability to stream your entire iTunes library to your iDevice over Wi-Fi. Previously, you could use Apple's Remote app to control and play an iTunes installation on another computer, but this is different. With iTunes Home Sharing, the audio from files stored elsewhere actually comes out of your iOS device, so you can listen to iTunes while on your treadmill, or stream a movie to your iPad on the couch. Note that Home Sharing requires an Apple ID, and all of the standard license requirements apply. One fun way to use this: try streaming music out to your dock in the bedroom. Your complete iTunes library is now available anywhere in the house! Home Sharing is found in the iPod settings on your iOS devices.
Mac 101: Using Home Sharing in iTunes 9
Home Sharing is one of the fantastic new features in iTunes 9, and one that slipped between the cracks in our coverage in the days after the software was released. Sang Tang showed us how to use FireWire to speed up transfers over your network, but this is a basic overview of how Home Sharing works and how you can use it to easily share media files to different computers in your household. This video was made using the new screen recording option in QuickTime X, which proved to be extremely easy and useful.
Using FireWire to help speed up the iTunes Home Sharing process
One of the new features of iTunes 9 is Home Sharing. The feature allows you to manually browse, import, and automatically add iTunes content from up to five authorized computers in your house. While Home Sharing is certainly a welcome feature, it's so slow that you may not live long enough to see all of your content transferred. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. Given the trend toward larger file sizes of digital media -- higher bit rate music and videos, in particular -- iTunes Home Sharing may take quite a bit of time for some. However, some FireWire shenanigans should shorten this time significantly. One of the neat features of FireWire is its networking capabilities. Similar to how you can connect crossover Ethernet cables to directly connect two computers, you can use FireWire to directly network (or daisy chain, if you have more than two) your computers. Doing this with iTunes Home Sharing, however, requires a bit of trickery, and here are the steps, assuming that your network config is set to Automatic: Turn on iTunes Home Sharing on two computers. Let's call them Computer 1 (which we'll call the target) and Computer 2 (which we'll call the host). Connect the two computers via FireWire. As you'll need an Internet connection to authorize your iTunes account on both computers, leave your Internet connection on for both computers. After authorizing, turn off the Internet connection (whether it's via AirPort or Ethernet) of the target computer (Computer 1). However, the Internet connection of Computer 2 should remain on. I've found that leaving on an Internet Connection on Computer 1 will result in Home Sharing using its Internet connection (either AirPort or Ethernet) to transfer the file within your LAN. Now, Computer 2 should be able to import the files from Computer 1 via iTunes Home Sharing using a FireWire transfer, which will likely save you a lot of time. Note: Using FireWire for iTunes Home Sharing is not bi-directional, so you'll need to repeat these steps if you want Computer 1 to import content from Computer 2. Although these steps are a bit of a hassle, you'll likely only need to do them once, as subsequent uses of Home Sharing will more likely be incremental in nature, for which AirPort or Ethernet should be adequate.
Video: iTunes 9 Home Sharing and iPhone app management
Sure, sure, the kids are all excited about iTunes LP and their fancy "lyrics" and "album art." You know what we're psyched about? Finally being able to manage our iPhone apps directly from iTunes 9. It works pretty much exactly as you'd expect, although we were able to make it do some minorly wonky things -- and we're psyched about the AutoFill-esque music sync feature that fills any remaining space on your phone with music.We're also pumped about the new Home Sharing feature in iTunes 9, which lets you transfer content between five different machines directly without screwing around with network shares or USB drives. We've seriously been waiting for a feature like this since iTunes sharing was first launched -- it also works exactly like you'd expect, and we think it'll make managing media across multiple machines much, much easier. Videos after the break!
