Aug 15

SimplifyMedia

Remember the patent filing about "iTunes anywhere" we were talking about a few days ago? I am sure those really in need of accessing their music collection remotely raised their eyebrows, and maybe some of them added a note to their to do list "check the status of Apple's iTunes anywhere patent," or something like that, just as I am waiting for full eye implants(yes, I hope to get 36X optical zoom eyes with a few millions MP resolution, what's the problem with that?) to become available in the next decade. The funny part is that an application following the approach described by Apple's patent has just arrived in the App Store, and its name is SimplifyMedia.

The idea behind SimplifyMedia is exactly the same as the one in Apple's patent I mentioned earlier, if you ask me - your iTunes library, located at home, becomes accessible via a broadband Internet connection, so no more storage limits, from now on. Hooray!

The iPhone application also uses a companion program for Windows, Mac and Linux,

so the iTunes songs and playlists from the user's computer and any of 30 friends can be easily shared and be accessible from anywhere, as long as your connection works well, of course.

The iPhone app isn't limited to a Wi-Fi connection and will also work over 2G and 3G Internet, and while listening to a song, you'll also get the album art and lyrics associated with it, if any available.

The downsides of SimplifyMedia include its ability to grant access to music that you don't legally own, while DRM-protected iTunes purchases won't stream with its help. For now, the app is available freely for the first 100,000 downloaders, and will be sold for $3.99 a copy, as soon as the download counter hits the 100K mark. Fortunately, the computer software companion is and will remain free.

Now, I only wonder about one thing - how long will this app hang on in Apple's App Store before being taken down? After all, some may consider this will inflict some losses to the iTunes Store...and I won't have to say anything else!