MyStream Lets You Share The Music, Not The Headphones
MyStream (Free) by ADEV Inc. is a new music sharing application that enables streaming between devices. It's currently only available in a free version, which is ad supported.
Music sharing has evolved over the past few decades from a boom box on the shoulder to earbuds with various iterations in between. This social experience has become a bonding catalyst for friends, family and lovers.
MyStream offers to cut the cord and enables the user to share a song from their device to another iOS device via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It works by allowing you to choose which songs you would like to share and then finding other MyStream users on the same network or within Bluetooth range. If you and the other user both have MyPlaylist and Streaming enabled then you can go into their profile and listen to songs in their MyStream playlist.
Of course MyStream makes it perfectly clear in the FAQ that this sharing is completely legal and abides by both Apple and music industry guidelines. Because of this there are some (somewhat major) restrictions on listening to music on other’s devices. The biggest one is that you can only listen to a 90 second clip, just like in iTunes. You also can’t fast forward or rewind the song and it won’t work with protected files.
Although MyStream makes every effort to help the user understand what it is and how it works, I still found the process confusing. There is a username section that I kept trying to make a name for, only to find out later that it automatically populates after you login with an email address.
MyStream provides an interesting feature set that should grow a faithful following, especially with the younger generation. Creating appeal for mainstream users, however, will require additional features and polishing of the process.
Update: It is possible to listen to full songs if they are being streamed on someone elses device. Also, a dozen or more devices can share MyStream at the same time.
