Simplify Media (Simplify Media)

Cost as reviewed: FREE

When I saw this app on the App Store, I downloaded it immediately. At the time it said the first 100,000 download would be free, but last I checked it’s still free and I’m betting they’ve passed that number of downloads.

Simplify Media lets you stream music from a computer to your iPhone. It can access either iTunes libraries or folders on your computer. You have to set up an account and then you can invite other users to share with you. On the iPhone, the application allows you to browse by artist, album, genre or song name. Once you start playing a song, it first buffers for a short (or sometimes LONG) time and then begins playing. You can view artist info as well as lyrics (if available).

Whenthis app works it is pretty darn awesome. Of course, that’s only when it works. It might not be the app’s fault that sometimes it doesn’t work – it’s probably due to network issues. Over my home WiFi it works fine … which isn’t that useful since I have other ways of streaming over my home network. When I’ve used this over Edge, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It tends to skip a lot and sometimes get hung up. 3G isn’t much better in my experience so far.

In addition, although it’s nice to have the artist info and lyrics, there is no way to scroll down if the text goes past the bottom of the screen. This just seems like an oversight by the developer, but maybe I’m missing something. Please let me know if it’s just me!

Overall I definitely like the concept, I just wish it was more reliable (again, it may be more of a network limitation).

Simplify Media Website