TorrentFreak

• Ernesto
• January 3, 2011
• 64
• App Store,
  apple,
  icontrolbits,
  iphone
• Print

For many Mac users Transmission is the BitTorrent client of choice. Unfortunately, managing Transmission’s BitTorrent downloads on the iPhone or iPad can only be done through a web-interface. This annoyance is now resolved thanks to iControlbits, the first and only native iPhone app for the Transmission client that apparently escaped the prying eye of Apple’s anti-torrent police.

Ten years ago, when BitTorrent was first released to the public, most people were lucky to own one computer with a connection to the Internet. Today, many people own several interconnected ‘online’ devices including smartphones, laptops and NAS servers.

To make BitTorrent downloads on one device accessible on others, all the major BitTorrent clients have developed web interfaces. These allow users to start, stop and pause downloads from wherever they are. Transmission, the favorite BitTorrent client of many Mac users, also has a web interface, albeit a limited one in the eyes of most iPhone and iPad owers.

To fill this gap, developer Luka Hlastec coded a native remote access App for the Transmission client named iControlbits. The App, which controls the Transmission client daemon via the RPC protocol, has more features than the standard web interface making it both convenient and useful.

“I’ve made it for myself, for managing transmission downloads,” Luka Hlastec told TorrentFreak when we asked him about his motivation to develop a Transmission App.

“I’m using Transmission daemon on my NAS device. With this app I can connect remotely to my NAS from everywhere and manage downloads and Transmission server settings. You can also start Transmission on your Mac and enable remote access and then connect with my app.”

Among other things the App allows users to start, stop, remove and pause current transfers. In addition, it can connect to multiple Transmission ‘servers’ with the option to set and change speed limits for the server as well as individual downloads.

iControlbits, currently sold for $1.99 in the App store, works as advertised but could benefit from some extra features. In particular the option to add new downloads would be a nice one to have. The developer is aware of this and hopes to release it soon. “I have coded a feature for adding new downloads, which I’ll probably include in next version,” Hlastec told TorrentFreak.

But user satisfaction is not the biggest worry for the App – Apple’s anti-torrent police is the more imminent threat. As many people know, Apple is notoriously known for banning all applications that have anything to do with BitTorrent. This was kindly demonstrated three months ago when a new remote control App was booted from the App Store in just a few days.

Let’s hope that for Hlastec and Transmission using Apple customers, iControlbits doesn’t share the same fate. We have a few dozen promo codes for people who want to try the App for free.

Ten years ago, when BitTorrent was first released to the public, most people were lucky to own one computer with a connection to the Internet. Today, many people own several...