Geekshow

MacGeek – Spotlight: Simplify Media

Every song ever made all for $.99.

This app allows streaming for all of your unprotected audio content directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch from your computer or up to 30 friends’ computer. The connection can be wifi, 3G or Edge for the iPhone and wifi for the iPod Touch. You’ll need a second piece of (free) software from Simplify Media for your computer where the audio content is stored, and it’s available for Macintosh, Windows and Linux. This is the software that actually streams the music. Best of all you can invite up to 30 friends to share music and have their entire music library at your fingertips. I have an iPhone 3G, iTunes, an iMac Core Duo, and it works flawlessly. I have tried it over wifi (best), 3G (better), & Edge (good) and have always been successful.

iTunes, Winamp, or Rhythmbox can be used as the music library application on the computer where the music is stored. Simplify also displays an artist bio page and lyrics for the currently playing song. Previously created playlists are also accessible. If you currently use last.fm, scrobbling is even available as an option.

A couple of things that should be noted:

Your host computer must remain on in order to stream music; the music is streaming from the computer, not the iPhone.

DRM protected music (including protected songs purchased from the iTunes Store) cannot be streamed. Although, all of iTunes music is now DRM-free, but if it isn’t, here’s how to fix that.

Cover art must be embedded in the music file in order to be displayed; Simplify Media will not grab the cover art.

If a call comes in while listening to music, it does not save your place or return to the app. Not a big deal, but annoying.

Simplify Media is a great way to have access to your entire music library anywhere your iPhone or iPod Touch has connectivity.

It’s free to share music from computer to computer [download page] and it’s currently $.99 for the iPhone/iPod Touch [iTunes - link]. Software version 2.0 or above is requred for iPhone and iPod Touch.