The Download Blog

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We've talked about Simplify Media here before as a great way to listen to music from your friends' iTunes music libraries (Windows and Mac). In fact, Simplify Media was one of our 10 best downloads of 2007. The minute you fire it up, you'll see why--as long as you and your friend both have a free account with Simplify Media, you can stream and listen to each others entire music collections on both Windows and Mac. But, the latest release of Simplify Media for iPhone and iPod Touch lets you take all of that music with you.

Sign in to your account to bring up available music libraries.

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To get started, download the app for your personal computer from the links above, register for free with Simplify Media, then grab the iPhone App from the iTunes App Store. Once you're signed in, you're music library should show up in the list as an available stream. It can take a few minutes for the app to scan your directory so don't be surprised if it doesn't work right away. If you already have friends on your account who use Simplify Media their libraries will show up as well. You can add up to 30 friends' libraries to your list, so spread the word to get more music.

You can automatically retrieve album art for music.

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Once you're all set up, the iPhone version of Simplify Media will display available libraries on your touch screen, and you'll be able to browse through song lists by genre, artist, and song--just like iTunes. The program also brings up album art for the artist you're listening to, along with artist bios and a lyric sheet for the current song. In our tests, the artist bio and lyrics pages sometimes were only displayed as far as the bottom of the screen, with no option for scrolling down. The program worked almost flawlessly using Wi-Fi, but on 3G it wasn't as reliable and would pause to buffer the stream.

Overall, we really like the concept, but it seems it still needs a little work. For those with reliable Wi-Fi or a strong 3G connection, Simplify Media for iPhone should work great. If you can get your friends on board to register and make their libraries available, this app is a great addition to any music lover who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch.

The new chat function lets users talk to their friends about the music they're borrowing from them.

(Credit: Simplify Media)

As the self-imposed deadline of June approaches, Simplify Media remains in beta for Windows, Mac, and mobile users. The iTunes and Winamp plug-in that lets you share your music with friends has, however, added three new features: chat, a "now playing" message that displays what your friends are listening to from your collection, and a built-in password reset for the forgetful among us.

The chat feature is the strongest, allowing you to directly communicate with friends, family, and even enemies with whom you've shared your music. It's a great way to give and get some direct feedback on what you're currently listening to, almost like a personalized mixtape with live commentary.

The "now playing" message pops up in your Media List, and is a reasonable (if somewhat navel-gazing) way to see what your friends like from your list. It'd be better if it kept statistics, but it still dovetails nicely with the chat feature. Nothing like interrupting a friend getting their groove on by asking them what they think about the music.

Although it hasn't exactly exploded into the mainstream music-listening population, the music-sharing application Simplify Media has a growing network of fans--in no small part because it's available for Windows, Mac, and soon the iPhone. When you install it, you must choose to sync with either Winamp or iTunes playlists, although you can change your preferred program after installation. After setup and restarting your music player, you'll see a "Simplify Media" selection in your left-hand navigation. Expand it, and you can browse all of the music available from you and your friends.

Claims of resource hogging and installation headaches are somewhat valid, and running it on Windows will likely require the included Apple Bonjour. Running Simplify Media, Winamp, and Simplify Media Peer, the process that streams media from your friends or remote computers, together uses more than a fair chunk of RAM.

Make no mistake with the minor quibbles: Simplify Media is an excellent and simple method of sharing music collections with friends or yourself in remote locations. We would like to see future versions become even more stable, as well as adding compatibility with other jukebox players.

One of the most promising freeware programs of 2007 was Simplify Media, a plug-in for iTunes and Winamp on both Windows and Mac that lets users share their music collections with friends and themselves via the Internet. The application is expecting an official release in June, but until then you'll have to appease your appetite for music with these beta builds.

New options in Simplify Media give users more flexibility.

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The program still eats a voluminous amount of virtual memory--near the 100MB range, on average--but if you're not using a lot of other system processes it makes for an attractive way to get your tunes across the world, or just to another room.

The expanded settings panel will be greatly appreciated by users who don't have their music files stored in the default iTunes or Winamp directories, or want to keep a separate collection of tunes for sharing in a separate folder. A new option lets you set the music folder location, and separately share iTunes or Winamp playlists. Users can make further tweaks to start-up behavior, and you'll now see a tally of songs being shared next to your friend's computer names.

Additional improvements for Mac users let them run Simplify Media with Front Row on Tiger and Leopard, and the application can now be run from the Menu Bar instead of the dock, but only in OS X 10.5.2. Sixty-four bit Windows Vista users should now see support for the application, as well.

Finally, the publisher notes that iPhone and other smartphone users should see an official release, also in June.

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Aside from his storied history of mastering downloadable software and ensnaring cyber-ne'er-do-wells around the globe, Power Downloader is also a longtime music collector. Since the very first 78rpm record he received as a young boy on Christmas Day untold years ago, Power has combed the stacks of record stores everywhere he travels. From Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles, and the Stooges to Arcade Fire, R. Kelly, and The White Stripes, Power Downloader has acquired a gigantic music collection that now also lives on his PC, portable MP3 player, and via software, any connected computer, or iPhone in the world.

When the digital-music revolution was only beginning to brew, Power took the opportunity to transfer a large number of his vinyl LP records to his PC using the free software Musicmatch, since acquired by Yahoo. Although he doesn't buy nearly as many records now as he did during the wild disco '70s, he still manages to acquire more than a few in the course of his adventures. Today he uses the free software Audacity to record his audio directly from his turntable to his PC using a preamp and a RCA-to-headphone adapter.

For ripping CDs, the options are numerous. Power's first choice is still the tried and true CDex, GPL-licensed software that very simply converts discs into lossless WAV files, compressed MP3s, or patent-free OGG files. Some users complain about slow transfer rates, but Power's more concerned with quality regardless.

File Renamer Basic makes renaming files by ID3 tag a snap.

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Through the years and batches of albums, CDs, and free digital downloads from sources like Download.com Music, Power has collected music files on his media PC that vary wildly in file name structure. Some are Artist-Album-Song, others Artist-Song, and many others simply song names as file names, with no artist info at all.

To standardize his digital music files, Power fires up the extremely useful free utility File Renamer Basic. This fantastic freeware lets you automatically find and replace terms from file names, delete a certain number of character from the beginning or end of the file, and directly edit ID3 tags for your music files. Even better, the app will automatically rename files based on their ID3v1 or ID3v2 tags. Insert the keywords you'd like to use to create the filename, select the files you want to rename, and voila--instant normalization of filenames.

Finally, to listen to his gigantic music library anywhere he goes, Power uses the free app Simplify Media, which lets you share your iTunes or Winamp libraries with any computer (or iPhone) with a connection to the Web. Those measly 160GB iPods aren't enough for Power's massive collection (plus you know he's got video). Using a home-networking system, multiple external hard drives, and DVDs full of archived tunes, Power has years and years of music to listen to, no matter where his adventures take him.

Once installed, Simplify Media will appear in your list of iPhone apps.

(Credit: Simplify Media)

Simplify Media--a free desktop application for Windows or Mac OS X that lets you stream your digital music or your friends' from iTunes or Winamp (Simplify Media covered previously)--today released a new version of its software that is developed to run on the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch.

Rather than function as a conventional iPhone app, (i.e. a Web app built for Safari), the new program is standalone software that requires a "jailbroken" iPhone to work.

The ability to listen to your entire music collection or your friends' anywhere your iPhone or iPod Touch has Wi-Fi access could certainly be very popular, since iPhones max out at 8GB storage and iPod Touch only allows up to 16GB. However, Simplify Media for the iPhone is still in alpha release, so don't get your hopes up too high yet.

Using a jailbroken iPhone with 1.0.2 firmware, we were able to access a remote library and play songs fine, but there were major functionality limits and stability issues. There's no way to sort your streaming music; back and forward buttons don't function completely; and we encountered some crashing issues.

A quick e-mail conversation with Simplify Media co-founder Paul Joyce seems to indicate that most of our stability issues were because of the outdated 1.0.2 firmware. Paul explains the problems with using 1.0.2:

"Although the early development of our peer-to-peer framework was done with 1.0.2, once the 1.1.1 jailbreak was perfected we upgraded. All of the (complicated) tie-ins with Quicktime to enable continuous playing were done with the newer firmware (1.1.1 and 1.1.2), explaining your problems. We have our personal phones (for testing) and a few extra phones and an iPod Touch for development, but, unfortunately, not enough to support the earlier firmware."

Once Simplify Media is running, you can explore your friends' music collections.

(Credit: Simplify Media)

Despite the currently limited feature set, Simplify Media is a great idea that will catch on in one form or another. Paul also mentioned that sort control, next song, and previous song haven't been coded yet but are planned for the next release. The company must definitely be champing at the bit for an official SDK for the iPhone, which is expected in February 2008. It's quite curious that the Simplify Media iPhone app isn't Web-based, considering the popularity of SeeQPod; also, anyone with an iPhone will have to break their service contract to even install Simplify Media.

For more on Simplify Media for iPhone or iPod Touch, visit the iPhone page on the Simplify Media Web site. If you're not prepared to jailbreak your iPhone or install prerelease software on your fancy new gadget, watch this Simplify Media video below that offers a tour of the mobile app. The software currently supports WMA, AAC, and MP3 formats for streaming audio.

Note: Download.com Editor Jason Parker contributed to this article, including most of the hands-on testing of the Simplify Media for iPhone app.

Although it hasn't exactly exploded into the mainstream music-listening population at large, the music-sharing application Simplify Media (download it for Windows or Mac) is a fan favorite of several CNET editors and staffers.

Simplify Media has always allowed you to listen to your iTunes playlists on the road or share them with friends. Yesterday, it announced support for the popular digital-music jukebox app Winamp for Windows.

When you install Simplify Media, you must choose whether it will work with Winamp or iTunes playlists. Those of us who occasionally use both apps and thought we might be able to consolidate playlists are out of luck. You can, however, change your preferred playlist program after installation. ... Read more