Review: Simplify Media

Overview Simplify Media streams your music library directly to your mobile device, conserving precious storage space and giving you on-demand access to your tunes. That is, unless the music is purchased from the iTunes store.

Functionality

This app is easy and straightforward: create an account, then use it to access your library wirelessly from your mobile device. If you’re a closet Alanis Morissette fan and can’t jeopardize your reputation by storing her songs on your iPhone, Simplify Media is here for you. Just keep her stuff in your computer’s music library and stream it to your phone whenever you feel like belting out “Hands Clean” in the car. Now you can be a closet fan and covert listener!

The app works by granting account access to you and other users that you invite. Also, your computer must be turned on for Simplify Media to be able to access your library on-demand. When it was working, I found that music streamed smoothly. But the app didn’t seem to actually function on a consistent basis. Problems accessing songs over 3G and EDGE networks seemed to be resolved by selecting the “Reset Database” option and relaunching the app, but that’s an annoying and time consuming step, especially when you need to listen stealthily. When music does stream, each song takes only a few seconds to buffer, with varying speeds depending on signal and network strength. The difference between speeds of WiFi and 3G was negligible at times and even a 36-minute track was buffered and playing within seconds. But a big downfall is that the app could not deal with music purchased from the iTunes store.

Review

While this app is exciting, it had too many problems loading music to qualify as a great download. It only seemed to be effective about one out of every three attempts. Also, its inability to play purchased music was disappointing. I’m a loyal, do-gooder iTunes Music Store customer (as lame as that may sound) and when I had the urge to break out singing “I kissed a girl and I liked it,” I could not stream my newly downloaded music to my phone. Sadly, Simplify Media wasn’t there for me in my time of need. But aside from the purchased music issue (which is likely something that won't be solved through an app) Simplify Media can be a surprisingly effective and worthy download (when it works). For example, I don’t usually keep reggaeton on my phone, but the moment was right and I needed to get my jam on. I quickly streamed a Daddy Yankee cut to my phone and only seconds later I was busy embarrassing myself in gridlock traffic. That’s not to say that Simplify Media doesn’t have a lot room for improvement. Aside from its sparing stream functionality, the app has a tendency to lag, not when playing music, but during basic program operation. This was especially true with the volume control, which for some reason is the major control element dominating the screen, but doesn’t seem to be responsive at all (volume is actually much more immediately adjusted manually, by using the buttons on the side of the iPhone).

Another big problem was the infinitesimal song progress bar, which indicates how far along in the track you are and how much time is left. This was tucked away into a corner of the screen and seemed to be inaccessible for the purposes of forwarding a song. So instead of jumping ahead, you have to struggle through your first experience of listening to one of those unnecessarily long intro skits (it’s a struggle you don’t want to go through, believe me). Finally, it is wonderful that Simplify Media is currently free and offers desktop software as well, but while users can invite others and accept invitations from their computers, that is not possible from a mobile device.

Summary

Simplify Media can be a lifesaver when it works, although it still has its share of glitches. It’s only marginally functional and it needs work, but it’s exciting, free (for now) and can be useful in times of need.

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