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Can I attach my iPhone 3GS to my Mac Pro so that the iPhone's audio plays through the Mac Pro's speakers?

I can easily attach my Bose headphones so that the music from the iPhone plays through them… that's cool… but I want others to hear the music through my Mac Pro's speaker system.

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Do you just want to play music from the phone, or sound from apps? The original question said "app", but has been removed in an edit. There is a major difference between the two. – mankoff Jan 10 '11 at 15:27
@mankoff - The original said, "music from an iPHONE app" and "music from the app." After your changes and mine, it now says, "iPhone's audio" and "music from the iPhone." What's the difference? My own take: musical output from an iPhone is audio output, and given that an app is required for an iPhone to produce audio, all iPhone audio output (musical or otherwise) can be assumed to be via an app. – Dori Jan 11 '11 at 0:58
The difference can be seen in the answers below. Music (that could be played through the iPod app) can be played through the USB connector cable and iTunes. Music/sounds from a game require a different solution. – mankoff Jan 11 '11 at 1:14
@mankoff - sadly, the original question wasn't sufficiently clear enough to be able to make that distinction—i.e., while she said she wants to play music, she didn't include what app produces it. My guess (apparently shared by others) is that she was referring to the iPod app. – Dori Jan 11 '11 at 1:33

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

You can play your iPhone's music out your mac via iTunes. You don't even have to be in sync with that iTunes library, just plug it in, navigate to your music, and press play.

If you're talking about like game audio coming out your mac's speakers... I'd take your speakers and plug them straight into the phone. There's no way I know of to use the mac as an audio route from the phone.

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up vote 0 down vote

If your iPhone is running (I think) 4.0 or above, I think most machines should be able to mount the phone and play the music through iTunes.

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up vote 0 down vote

Sound from Apps

There are probably multiple ways to do this. Perhaps some could use the existing iPhone connector. But certainly if you get a male to male headphone adapter, you could take the audio out of the iPhone and into the audio input (mic) on the desktop, then use Audacity or another program to play the sound from the mic input

Music from iPhone

In iTunes, select your iPhone on the left column. Select music. Play.

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That may work to get the sound in … but how do you turn the Mac's audio input into its audio output? – Dori Jan 10 '11 at 8:54
Lots of programs will connect the mic in to the speakers. Try Audacity audacity.sourceforge.net – mankoff Jan 10 '11 at 15:26

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