Simplify Media Mobile for iPhone!?

[paul_simplifymedia]

I just wanted to let you know that the latest version available through Installer (build 931) works with 1.1.4 as well as 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 firmware. 931 also has a number of bug fixes, improved playback quality, and a next song button, and it displays current song tags.

We hope to have an update with view by artist, album and genre very soon.

[paul_simplifymedia]

We've just released build 937 and it is available now through STE and Installer. In honor of 100K downloads, we've bumped the label from alpha to beta and added our top requsted feature: ipod-like navigation for libraries.

You can now view by artist, by album, by genre and by song. And, for long lists, you can also jump to a letter with the a-z sidebar. Hopefully this will make the application easier to use without playlists. As always, if you have questions or problems, drop us a line at support at simplifymedia. Thanks!

[Emir S.]

Great update my friend.
This app is maturing quite well if I may say so.

[GravityEyes]

I agree! Great update! I will now use this more often!!

[777emirates]

I feel like I'm the stupidest person on earth, NEED help.. I have windows operating system on my PC, and I just bought IPHONE. Don't know anything about how do use or get this thing up and running. Could someone give me guidance were to go next, please. 777

[dallasnights]

GREAT JOB can you add shuffle please

Outstanding work!

[Tommeh]

Best program ever for the iPhone imho!

[NetMage]

I was really (really) excited about this update until I tried it. While a great step forward, I am still disappointed in the implementation of some of the features.

The first thing I notice is the wait icon is almost invisible with a white load screen behind it - perhaps you need to use the wait icon shadow background to make it visible?

The next thing I tried was All Albums. When I selected an album, it displayed the tracks, but no track #s were displayed. When you play a track, the track information was displayed, though not very pretty. No genre information there, though. I then wanted to adjust the volume, and noticed I was adjusting the main system volume, and not a relative local volume. Somehow the built-in iPod takes over the volume buttons while playing, but sets itself relative to a main system volume. Much nicer.

I then tried Genres which appeared to bring up a list of the songs matching the genre. Totally unexpected. Worse still, they were in alphabetical order! Does anyone really listen to their music alphabetically by song title? Or any other alphabetical?

Compare to the iPod genre experience - you see the Artists that match, then the albums, then the songs. Along the way, you can select All Songs in All Albums, All Songs for an Artist, All Songs in a particular Album, and then Shuffle Play at any of those levels.

This is (just) about the perfect interface - even beats my PhatBox for flexibility and specificity at the same time.

Hoping you find this helpful.

This is one product I would gladly buy when 2.0 comes out if it can reach commercial polish.

[paul_simplifymedia]

@netmage, this is excellent feedback and there is little we disagree with. The version for 2.0 will certainly have extra layers in the artist and genre categories, and an update soon should add shuffle (the next most requtest feature on our list).

We first wanted to address the obvious ommissions (not having all artists, all albums, etc) and then work on adding polish.

[reeko]

i was quite excited by this as it is a huge huge gap for the iphone which needs filling.

at the moment i use WeBot, and as far as i can see it is the same concept.

i have WeBot set up right now and i will be using that until this becomes allot more user friendly.

i am impressed at the same time though. well done and thanks.

[Broomhead]

Thanks for this app! I'm very excited about the 2.0 release

[x999x]

Thanks for this app, its truly one of the best out there. It was an extremely easy setup, and nothing more was required than creating a username and password to get my desktop actively serving my media.

I've tried them all, and for what it does, nothing has come close to the speed and ease at getting your music streaming from your desktop like Simply Media can.

[volly20]

To begin this post I want to say that I love this app. The developers clearly listen to the users, because I see the majority of suggestions made are seen in this update. That being said, I do agree with previous posters regarding the arrangement of songs and albums isn't exactly there yet. In addition, the reliability of Simplify loading others music collections as well as my own still isn't 100% there either. I notice I have to have simplify loading and I have to have itunes loaded as well to have a better chance at seeing my own collection. Again, these are minor issues as I think the programmers have done an excellent job. When 2.0 rolls out this app will be at the top of my list as I have 12,000 songs and an 8 GB iphone. I also have an 80 GB ipod, but hey its nice to have access to all my songs and many others collections.

On a side note I wanted to know from others about their music tastes. I like just about everything, but I wanted to know what other people have been listening to lately. I'm always up to discover new artists. Right now, I have been listening to a lot of Springsteen live 75-85 album. For those are my friends it's on my Boss Playlist. I went to the concert recently and it was great. Oh for everyone who likes simplify d/l mobile scrobbler. Its really neat and a cool way to learn about more artists.

[paul_simplifymedia]

We're back with another update: build 949 (screenshots). Our goal was to implement our most requested features so this new version has:

+Album art - using Amazon Web Services to search for a match. In the future we will display the cover art already associated with the file for increased accuracy and rely on Amazon as a fallback.

+Artist bios - from last.fm. These user-created bios are distributed under the GNU free document license.

+Lyrics - courtesy of lyrics wiki and also user-generated and distributed under the GNU free document license.

+Shuffle - select Shuffle from the top of any song list, and the tracks from an album, a genre, an artist or a playlist will be randomized for your enjoyment. It even works with the All Songs list.

There are still many refinements to make, but we hope enjoy the latest release. As always, if you have a problem, select Report Issue or drop us a line at support at simplifymedia. Thanks!

[Marasmus]

This application is on my top 3 list of apps for my phone alongside VNSea and MobileScrobbler. Just fantastic.

You're obviously reading this thread, so I was hoping I could add some feature suggestions:

1. Sharing of playlists.
2. Ability to merge playlists from multiple friends (great if you're having a party)
3. Have an option to just load playlist content to make the app load faster (some people have 200GBs of music, and that's no fun to load with this app when multiple people have that much)

Possible?

[paul_simplifymedia]

@maramus, apologies for the quick reply, but thanks for the compliments and the great suggestions.

on 1, are you asking about playlists on the iPhone? it is technically possible for us to share from the phone, but since those same playlists are also on another computer with lots more bandwidth (and no battery issues), it isn't something we've thought too much about. Ultimately, we'd like to run over 3G and Wifi.

on 2, we agree. It is going to take us some time, but we plan to give you many more options for creating your own playlists on the fly.

on 3, very good point. I could see a number applications for a configuration switch like that. It is certainly something we will consider. Faster startup time is a priority for us and we have a few improvements in mind.

our focus now will be preparing for 2.0 and releasing some new things for the desktop. after that we'll see what more goodies we can add to the mobile version.

[NetMage]

I updated to 949 on the phone and the new desktop version, and it seems to be taking a long time to startup - it says "Loading libraries..." - after a while it returns to Connecting... screen and then back to Loading libraries...

Maybe it would be good to show more feedback during this process - percentage or titles or something.

[paul_simplifymedia]

NetMage, for 2.0 you should see faster startup, but better feedback is always helpful for users. Right now, the first time we connect from the iPhone after installation, it is a bit painful as we build a cache. However, if you are stuck at "loading libraries..." for more than a few minutes there may be a problem. Can you select Simplify Media's Settings and then:

1) enable Verbose logs
2) pick Reset database

The app will clear its old files and connectoin information and then restart. If you don't see online computers showing up after 3 minutes can you go back to settings and select Report Issue? That will send us trace level logs and we can try to figure out what is happening. Thanks!

[Marasmus]

@maramus, apologies for the quick reply, but thanks for the compliments and the great suggestions.

on 1, are you asking about playlists on the iPhone? it is technically possible for us to share from the phone, but since those same playlists are also on another computer with lots more bandwidth (and no battery issues), it isn't something we've thought too much about. Ultimately, we'd like to run over 3G and Wifi.

on 2, we agree. It is going to take us some time, but we plan to give you many more options for creating your own playlists on the fly.

On 1: No, I wasn't talking about playlists on the iPhone or sharing anything from it. That would be bad Was talking about accessing playlists in iTunes from the phone, instead of just the library. So you have an extra option called Playlists, in addition to categories like Albums, Artists, Songs etc.

On 2: Was talking about merging iTunes playlists from multiple friends on the phone. So you can create a playlist at home in iTunes and have someone else access it on their phone and maybe merge it with other playlists.

Sorry I wasn't able to explain it better the first time

[dallasnights]

Outstanding update!!

I agree a faster way to get the songs indexed would be the best update next

thank you!