No matter how hard you try to keep your music library organized, compressed, and free of ABBA, eventually you’re going to have more tunes than you can fit on your iPhone (or iPod, or any other mp3 device). The most recent iPod Classic has a capacity of 120GB, which can certainly hold a lot of songs. (I have the previous model; it has 80GB of space on it.) But most of the time we try to pick and choose the tracks we can fit onto our 16GB or 32GB iPhone or our 8GB iPod Nano. Right now I’ve got 10,950 songs in iTunes. That’s 44GB of music, way too much to fit on even my brand new iPhone 3GS. I am forced to create playlists specifically so that I have the right music synchronized with my phone.
That’s fine and dandy, but what happens when you’re on the road and you absolutely must hear Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy? What do you do when you’re at a friend’s house party and you realize you don’t have Pussywillow by Greg Dulli on your iPod Touch? Or — worse — what a disaster it would be to squeeze thousands of your favorite songs onto your iPhone and then realize on the plane that you forgot Wrap It Up by The Fabulous Thunderbirds!
Well … you’re in luck. Like the commercial says, “There’s an app for that!”
Simplify Music (iTunes Store) by Simplify Media lets you stream your music from your iTunes library directly to your device. This amazing piece of software accomplishes this feat over any WiFi, Edge, or 3G connection. That means that regardless of your location — unless you’re seriously in the boonies, far, far away from any cell service — you can access all of your music! You can search your library, tag favorites, get to all of your playlists, and even share your music with friends.
You’re no longer limited by the capacity of your device. As long as you have the songs in your library, no matter where it is, you can listen to them. And you’re not restricted to iTunes, either. The Simplify Media software works with WinAMP, WMP 11, Front Row, and even Rhythmbox on Linux. You don’t even need to have an Apple music player, because the software works with Sonos, Roku, and XBox 360, too.
The app is (currently) $5.99 at the iTunes Store, but the software for your computer is free.