[Michael Johnston]

The iPhone is a fantastic media player, but its storage space is obviously limited — enter Simplify Media. Simplify Media is an application that lets you listen to your music collection anywhere you want. In addition to being able to listen to your own music, you can also invite up to 30 friends to be on your "buddy list" and stream their music as well.

Simplify has been around for quite some time on the desktop now, allowing people to easily share their music. When the iPhone came out, the Simplify folks realized that their application could be used to stream a nearly endless supply of tunes right to your iPhone. Simplify Media's development started early on the iPhone, making its debut as a jailbreak-only application. Thanks to its "trial period", many features and bug fixes made their way to the app for its App Store debut.

Simplify Media is a very straight-forward and simple application, hence its name. The first step is to run the Simplify Media application on your desktop. This acts as the gateway to your library. The second step is to install the Simplify Media application on your iPhone. Once you've logged in at both locations, your home library becomes available to your iPhone through the application. You can also view and stream music from anyone you've invited to be your friend on the Simplify Media network. There's absolutely no configuration outside of logging into the application.

The good: Simplify Media gives you the ability to stream any audio in your iTunes library right to your iPhone or iPod touch, even if it's not synced. It works pretty well over WiFi and 3G, and alright over EDGE.

The interface is laid out in a very similar way to the iPod application. You can pick from any playlist, or choose artists to choose your favorite band. After choosing an artist, you can go to all songs or pick an album to listen to. When one track is finished playing, it advances to the next just like the iPod.

Simplify Media also has access to artist info and song lyrics via Last.fm.

The bad: Although Simplify Media seems like an answer to our prayers, it's a buggy answer. I found that lyrics and artist bios don't scroll (very odd) and it can take quite a while to load up libraries especially if they're fairly large. I also found that the app doesn't sort everything as it should ("The Beatles" show up under 'T' and not 'B').

The app also seems to be missing some features right now. You can't play video, but that's not a HUGE deal, especially over EDGE. You can't jump to a specific spot in the music and cover art doesn't show up, although they say it's coming soon.

Bottom line: So is Simplify Media worth a spot on your iPhone? Absolutely. Although it does have its share of shortcomings, this app is far to useful to ignore. It's free right now, although it seems that the developer plans to start charging for it after 100,00 copies have been downloaded, so get it while you can!

[wba6464]

It should be stated in BOLD PRINT that this app does not stream DRM files to the iphone. 90% of my music was purchased from iTunes... which means 90% of my music database doesn't stream using this application.

[bruss147]

Originally Posted by wba6464

It should be stated in BOLD PRINT that this app does not stream DRM files to the iphone. 90% of my music was purchased from iTunes... which means 90% of my music database doesn't stream using this application.

Uh.... are you sure? I'm pretty positive I tested that and it worked fine.

[Pepper]

really? if the DRM issue is true, it almost seems silly to reward the users that pirate. But thats also the case when you want to burn a mp3 CD with DRM on it

[wba6464]

Originally Posted by bruss147

Uh.... are you sure? I'm pretty positive I tested that and it worked fine.

http://www.simplifymedia.com/support.html

What types of files can be played?
Common music file types, such as MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple Lossless can be played. Exceptions include DRM protected WMA files, vorbis, WAV and FLAC.

What about songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store?
Computers signed in with your Simplify Media screen name and authorized by the iTunes Store can play iTunes purchased songs in iTunes. Computers not signed in with your Simplify Media screen name will not see those DRM protected files.

DRM-protected files cannot be played on the iPhone and iPod Touch using Simplify Media.