Simplify Media lets you access your music and your friends’ music over the Internet, all within iTunes. Listen to music from home while at work or school and explore friends’ music while they are online.
Simplify Media features:
• Works within iTunes: Instead of using a limited, browser-based player, you can sort, search and play all remote libraries using the standard iTunes UI.
• Easy setup: No need to upload files to a website. No port-forwarding or firewall configuration.
• Cross platform/format: Supports MP3, AAC, and WMA files across both Macs and PCs (Windows XP or Mac OS 10.4x). For your own account you can even access your iTunes-purchased songs.
• Private groups: Computer-to-computer streams are encrypted, and there are limits on the number of friends to whom you can connect.
The Private groups capability “is important in terms of both user experience and copyright protection. By focusing on trusted groups, we can provide a more intimate connection with deeper application integration. By limiting access to streaming within small, private groups, we avoid issues related to distributing files and public broadcasting,” Paul Joyce, Simplify Media’s Co-founder, told MacDailyNews.
Links to partner stores (currently Amazon) make it easy to buy remote music you wish to own, and there is incentive to do so because you cannot put remote songs on an iPod, burn them to a CD, or access them when the remote computer is offline. These links also enable Simplify Media to offer the application for free.
More info and download link here.
Nice to see this functionality returned to iTunes. Wish Apple had never pulled it.
Sounds great, but I’m often hestitant to install 3rd party plug-ins because all too often they cause problems the next time updates roll around as was common with the old “Safari Enhancer” long ago.
This app is POOR. On the Mac and Windows. This beta needs some heavy work. I turned it on (Mac) and left home. Invited myself from work. Came home. Looks like the app was using 50% of my CPUs all day waiting for me to accept or decline an invite. Sloppy coding. Doesn’t use your iTunes list. Scans folders for music. Grinding your hard drive for a long time if you have a lot of music. Totally hogging CPU and disks.
Stay away.
MDN word: stay