Simplify 2.0 for PC, Mac, Linux, iPhone and iPod touch
In the next few hours you will receive a notice on your computer announcing Simplify 2.0. The Mac, Windows and Linux desktop versions of Simplify 2.0 remain free, and they include significant stability improvements and new features detailed below. We recommend that everyone upgrade.
Simplify 2.0 for iPhone and iPod Touch is a new application that includes all of your top feature requests. It is available right now in the Apple App Store at a special $2.99 introductory price.
As a separate app, 2.0 for iPhone is an optional upgrade. We will continue to provide support and bug fixes for 1.x users, and 1.x works just fine with the new 2.0 PC, Mac and Linux versions. For those of you who find the new features of 2.0 worth the price, we appreciate your financial support.
| New for iPhone and iPod Touch | ||
| Search all of your libraries
Search by artist, album or song across all of your connected libraries. |
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| Add to favorites
Tap the + icon to add any song or album to your Favorites list. |
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| Create a playlist on-the-fly
Add, delete and re-order your Favorites to create a playlist wherever you are. |
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| Seek using the scrub bar
Use the scrub bar to advance or rewind to any point in a song, audiobook or podcast. |
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| Improved sorting
Lists of artists, albums and songs now have improved sorting to handle a, an and the and other common name variations. |
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| New for PC, Mac and Linux | ||
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Integrate with WMP 11
On XP and Vista, share your Windows Media Player library and playlists. And, on Vista use WMP 11 to play your Simplify Media shares. |
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Share select playlists
With library sharing, choose to make all of your playlists available – or just a select few. |
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Broadcast to UPnP devices
Turn on this setting, and your computer can send Simplify shares to local, UPnP-enabled players like Sonos, Roku or XBox 360. |
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FLAC
Simplify now supports FLAC as well as MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple Lossless audio formats. |
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Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04
Simplify runs on 8.10 and 9.04. The older 8.04 release is no longer supported. |
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If you have any additional questions, check out our improved support page with a searchable knowledge base and troubleshooting tips.
John Reed said,
April 29, 2009 @ 8:32 am
I’ll start by saying I do plan on paying for the upgrade, and I love the product.
.. that out of the way … is 2.0 backward compatible with 1.x?
specifically if I were to, accidentally or otherwise, upgrade my desktop version to 2.0 would I still be able to use the 1.x version on my iPhone?
thanks
John Reed
Rob said,
April 29, 2009 @ 8:33 am
Still no proxy support, I see. <sigh>
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 8:37 am
John, yes. you can use 1.x with 2.x. I’ll edit the post to make that clearer, but everyone should move to the 2.0 PC, Mac and Linux version.
Josh H. said,
April 29, 2009 @ 8:40 am
Mehhh… Not enough new and exciting things for me to buy into v2.0! Oh well, for now, I am super happy with 1.0
One bit of criticism, change the v2.0 icon color! That gray color is very unpleasant for such an upbeat program.
Brian said,
April 29, 2009 @ 9:12 am
looks great. Can’t wait to try them out.
Mark said,
April 29, 2009 @ 9:15 am
How do I get rid of the “Simplify Demo” source?
Enkaytee said,
April 29, 2009 @ 9:50 am
Yep – I second that last entry – HOW DO I GET RID OF THE “SIMPLIFY DEMO” source – it’s driving me crazy..!!!
Cheers
Joe said,
April 29, 2009 @ 9:57 am
I want to get rid of the Simplify Demo source too! ASAP!
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 10:13 am
Brian, thanks! We tried to add all of the most popular requests.
Josh, we’ll work on something more colorful.
Mark, Enkaytee and Joe, we created the demo source as a troubleshooting tool to make it easier for people to pinpoint and solve problems. There isn’t a way to remove it right now, but it is something we can investigate for an update.
Tres Trantham said,
April 29, 2009 @ 10:41 am
Great update! I was just suggest to color the icon and name it Simplify. Version 1 should be the one that is renamed as it is now the legacy app.
Tres Trantham said,
April 29, 2009 @ 10:45 am
Oh, and artists starting with A or An should be sorted normally. Just artists starting with The should be sorted by the second word!
User said,
April 29, 2009 @ 10:53 am
Yes, PLEASE let us get rid of that demo source.
User said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:00 am
Also, I REALLY miss the orange icon for the iPhone. Could you at least give us an option of what color to make the icon? Perhaps you could make it a different shade of orange if you want to differentiate pre 2.0 client from others on the iPhone. Gray is just so dull and boring.
Dave said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:05 am
I’m with the other people here… Can you work on getting rid of the “Simplify Demo”?
It’s not something I want there, nor did I ask for it. I’d hate to uninstall Simplify Media because of it but I will!
Ryan said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:28 am
Don’t get me wrong. I love Simplify Media. I just paid for 1.x a few months ago and now I have to pay for 2.x? I understand I guess…you gotta pay the bills. I wish that maybe there were some kind of discount given to your pre-existing customers. That would be amazing and I would totally upgrade for less. Bear in mind that Simplify Media is the ONLY app I have paid money for, so I am quite the cheapskate.
Also, how is the library loading time? I have noticed (in full 3G and Wi-Fi areas) that my library list takes quite a while to load. I do have a pretty large library (600 GB or so) but it would be great if it would at the very least load parts of the library so I am not waiting on a blank screen. Possibly some sort of loading screen or estimated time would work, too. The white screen just kinda drives me crazy.
All that said, great job guys! I am glad that you are making positive changes and improving on an already great product!!
Frederick said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Please hurry up and add a method to remove the “Simplify Demo” source. It truly makes your wonderful product look terribly ugly.
I have uninstall 2.0 and just reinstall the last build of Version 1. I will continue using Version 1 until I see an announcement saying you’ve added method to remove the “Simplify Demo” source.
HighTechDad said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:33 am
I just upgraded to 2.0 (including the iPhone app). iPhone to my Mac source works great. However, my PC (running 2.0) does not seem to see my Mac. I recently went through the troubleshooting with Kaspersky (which corrected issues I was having on v1.0). I did the same with 2.0 but still my original source does not show. I even disabled Kaspersky and tried logging in to Simplify again (on both machines). Still no love.
Any suggestions on troubleshooting this? Is a reboot of the PC required after installing 2.0? (That is one thing I haven’t tried.)
Thanks,
HTD
Dieds said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:38 am
Upgraded and I truly love the ability to skip through the track.. Awesome!
A job well done guys!
Landon said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:52 am
Please let me get rid of the demo!!
Matt said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:56 am
Great job! I got the iPhone update and it works great! Had a little trouble at first upgrading to the new Mac server, but it worked fine eventually.
I don’t really understand people grumbling over a $3 purchase. You spent hundreds of hours developing the new versions and people have a problem spending less than it costs for lunch for an app they will probably use for dozens or hundreds of hours. Makes no sense.
Maarthok said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:58 am
I hate this demo files :
Jaime said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
@ Paul
“[...] we created the demo source as a troubleshooting tool to make it easier for people to pinpoint and solve problems. [...]”
Oh and you decided about a random artist of course…
Seriously if your intentions are truly for troubleshooting you might want to rethink it. Right now I feel like I have been spammed “media malware” into my iTunes (sorry for the artist but I don’t even want to start listening), I don’t like it and obviously I am not the only one.
There isn’t a way to remove it right now, but it is something we can investigate for an update [...]
So first you force your “troubleshooting tool” (thank you for giving the option at install time), then you don’t give access to removal?
Yes please “investigate”.
Very disappointing, almost lame.
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:16 pm
Matt, obviously thanks. Some pushback is natural; we just hope we were able to add $3 worth of new features.
Maarthook, Landon, et al – you are making simpler to figure out what to investigate for 2.02, but, I have to admit, this has caught me by surprise. On the iPhone, almost all of my time is spent on screens other than the Media List – and in iTunes it is a 1 line entry. Our hope was to make it easier for folks to troubleshoot and get their friends connected.
Dieds, thank you! It is appreciated.
HighTechDad, a reboot is never a bad idea, but if you are still having problems, please select Report Issue from the Troubleshooting window and add your description of the problem. That will send diagnostic information to us so we can figure out what is happening. It would also help if you tell us if you can play from the demo peer.
Ryan, a few things. First, thanks. That Simplify is the only app you have purchased means a lot to us. Second, your library does load incrementally, and you don’t have to wait for 100% to start browsing and playing. Third, we agree that it would be desirable to distinguish between new and upgrade pricing. There isn’t a way to do that in the App Store, so we decided to make the introductory 2.0 price lower than the price new users will have to pay in 2 weeks.
Tres, more thanks. We’ve tried to follow iTunes sorting rules closely, and they ignore a and an.
Connix said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
Great Update. But two things: 1st It’s a pitty that no more support for Obuntu 8.04 and 2nd that it’s still not possible to stream podcasts out of the itunes library to the itouch (but from PC to PC)…why not?
Matt said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
C’mon people… What’s with all the angst over the silly Demo library? Grow up a little…. They will fix it.
Oh wait… I shouldn’t waste my breath. You were going to complain about something regardless, weren’t you? If it wasn’t the demo library or the icon color, then it would have been the fact that the app doesn’t allow you to tweet something obnoxious automatically.
Meteor said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:29 pm
I updated my iphone to 2.0, however the favorites menu could have some options…
A way to clear completely the favorite tab (what if I have 200 favorites and want to delete them all ? do I have to delete them one by one ?)
A way to save the favorites as a playlist or to put favorites in folders
JohnnyK said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:37 pm
I agree about the demo library. It is a little annoying and the first things I looked for was a way to disable, but it sounds like it will probably be removed on the next update (and hopefully soon), so I can live with it.
Otherwise, the update to the iPhone app is nice. All I really wanted was the ability to seek a track, and it delivers. The search feature is a bonus. I don’t remember ever having to pay for the app, so maybe I got the original when it was free but I would have happily paid for it. I certainly don’t mind paying $3 for it now since it basically turned my 8GB iPhone into a 30+GB (or as high as I can go).
The only feature request I would ever have, and it’s a doozy and maybe an entirely different app, is video support.
Jaime said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
@Paul
“in iTunes it is a 1 line entry[...]”
No it’s not, it’s a complete shared library, it’s a full album, it’s showing in the desktop application too, basically it has all the characteristics of viral marketing, including a url to the artist website.
Even if it would be a single line, the issue here is the ethics of pushing media via the application layer, without mentioning it at install time, worst without giving a way to remove it. Yes I know it is only a shared library, it does no harm, it’s free and nobody is forcing me to use your soft, well I hope there are some other arguments in favor of this “trouble shooting tool”, I’d be happy to read them.
“Our hope was to make it easier for folks to troubleshoot and get their friends connected. [...]”
I don’t doubt you have to troubleshoot, however the way this is done makes me really doubt about this unique “troubleshoot” intention… If you would have mention something about exploring a way to make money with some kind of “artist of the week” pushed the way you are pushing your “troubleshooting tool” I wouldn’t be so upset, but doing it this way…yeah…disappointing…very…
Timothy Bennett said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
Am I the only one having trouble downloading the PC version? HTTP connection issue…
Gabe said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:50 pm
Can you make the Mac client stop nagging me to update to 2.0 every half hour? There’s a reason I set Simplify to run in the background – I don’t want to see it until I want to see it.
Now, about paying another $3 for the update of an app I bought two weeks ago…
Jaime said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
@ Matt
“C’mon people… What’s with all the angst over the silly Demo library? Grow up a little… [...] You were going to complain about something regardless, weren’t you?”
No I wasn’t, prior to this update I kept communicating about how great is this soft. Do you really think this is just about a line in my iTunes? The issue here is about the ethics and it goes beyond my single complaint, you can be sure EFF is not far.
@ Johnyk
“[...]I agree about the demo library. It is a little annoying and the first things I looked for was a way to disable, but it sounds like it will probably be removed on the next update (and hopefully soon), so I can live with it”
Yeah that’s exactly what I thought when I received my first spam email in 1995, I can still live with it and I am still waiting for it to be removed…
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 12:54 pm
@Jaime, thanks for explaining the concern. I think I understand it better now.
The artist is Brad Sucks. I asked him, as a favor to us, if we could use his music as part of our troubleshooting tool. We had used a track before in one of our first videos.
Including his URL seemed like the least we could do to say thanks. We get no money from any sales, nor would we ask for any from an independent artist. If we ever take your suggest and introduce an “Artist of the Week” feature it will be labeled that way.
btw, we are big fans of the EFF.
Matt said,
April 29, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
@Jaime… Much ado about nada.
Chris said,
April 29, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
Wait a minute, so I paid $4 for this app, and now you want to charge me another $3 to add seek and a few UI improvements?
You’re free to charge whatever you want, of course, but this is customer-hostile, and out-of-line with the the majority of iPhone applications. Like it or not, $4 is expensive for an iPhone app. $7 is very expensive.
What happens in six months when you add more features? Are we going to see a v3.0, with a new price tag? And a v4.0? Furthermore, as v1.0 fades into history, how long will you continue to support the v1.0 application? And how long will you support v2.0 when IT is End-of-Life’d?
I suppose it doesn’t matter if you lose some customers by going with a paid upgrade, because you won’t be losing any revenue that you wouldn’t have also lost by keeping upgrades free. Just know that some of us aren’t going to pay what is essentially a subscription for you to continue developing this application. Especially when there is no recurring cost for you (ie: Simplify uses MY bandwidth, unlike Pandora and the like). My wife and I sure won’t pay. And I can’t recommend anyone else buy Simplify when I know customers will be hit for more money when the next version is released.
I see this ship has already sailed, but I hope you reconsider your position on upgrades. With 17 million iPhones on the market (to say nothing of the iPod Touch), there is no reason you need to nickel and dime your existing customers. Improve the app to add new customers, or keep re-charging your existing your customer base if you’d rather it dwindled instead.
Francis said,
April 29, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
I was really excited to see this update! I’m a huge fan of Simplify Media, I use it almost every day, and the new features are definitely worth the update price for me (this may be partially because I got the 1.0 during the initial promotion when it was free). That said, there are a couple of notes that I mean in an entirely constructive manner:
Searching:
When searching the results are always returned by Artist, regardless of what category I used to search. For instance, if I’m looking for the High Fidelity soundtrack, and I type “High Fidelity” into the Album field, I get a listing of all of the artists that have songs on the album. There’s no way to navigate from this list to the full track list of the album, so there’s no way for me to play the album from the beginning to the end if I use Search to find it. Does that make sense?
Also the button that initiates the search is in an odd spot, typically reserved for “back” type buttons. Maybe a big “Search” button underneath the three fields?
The icon:
Sorry, I hate the gray. I loved the orange of the 1.x icon because it was the same orange as the iPod logo, and thus it was a great visual cue. Also I’d love it to simply say “Simplify”, rather than “Music 2.0”.
That’s my feedback. Best of luck with the new version, I’m very happy to have this program.
–
Francis
Steve said,
April 29, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
Am I wrong, or is the latest desktop download for mac still labeled version 1.0?
I’ve downloaded it twice and the info reads 1.0
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
Steve, the about box should read 2.0.0.1241 on Mac and PC (1242 for Linux).
Francis, excellent feedback.
Matt said,
April 29, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
@Chris… They do have recurring costs… I know no specifics about their server side, but they do account management and provide a proxy to your libraries (sort of a DDNS), wherever they might be on the planet. Nowhere in the client do you specify a workstation name or IP address. SM handles that, with a definite cost to them. Whether that cost is $1 or $10,000 a month, I have no idea.
Streaming is done directly from the source library to the client, as you suggested.
Jonas said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
Although it apparently isn’t too annoying for some users, I must add my vote to those asking to get rid of the “Simplify Demo”. I see no practical benefits and it now only serves to add clutter to my iTunes library list. I hope this will be fixed shortly. Otherwise I greatly appreciate your continued development of what I find to be an incredibly useful application.
Tyk said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
I got all excited thinking the “Demo” was a way to discover new music… considering I use SimplifyMedia for FREE I thought it was a clever way for the developer to make some money and a way for me to discover new music. In fact, I actually came on the blog to figure out if my friend could use it was a way to market his new album.
Seriously, people whining about this saying they’ve been spammed and what not… you’re paying either NOTHING or NEAR NOTHING for an extremely valuable app (at least for me).
The best comment I think was the one saying $7 was “very” expensive for an app. Seriously dude, then go develop your own app if you’re going to whine about it. I’d pay $20 for this app if they wanted it because it does what I want it to and does it well. Or if they wanted a couple bucks a month subscription to take care of the costs they have as the one poster mentioned, I’d pay it. It’s totally worth it.
Thank you to SimplifyMedia. I’ve used it from near the beginning, and the worst problems I had they fixed. Having my music available at all times is THE BEST.
And hey, maybe look into the indie artist discovery idea. Yeah, people will whine and bitch like they are over the “demo” thing… but real music fans will appreciate the chance to discover something new. Maybe it’s playlists divided up by genre or something. Just a suggestion.
Kenneth Pont said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
You may want to add a link or mention that when users see a “Simplify Demo” there is no reason to panic. I saw the additional user to the other three I have and FREAKED! As a security speciallist and knowing that this is sharing a folder from my system, I quickly changed the password, stopped and started Simplify Media several times, etc. And this phantom connection persisted, I was almost certain someone had hacked you and we were all at risk.
Steve said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:08 pm
OK -
I’ve downloaded it (the mac version – in the middle) directly from your downloads page again and the preview about box says that it was created 4/21/09 at 5:58 and it’s version 1.0.
I’ve done this before hundreds of times but I have to ask – am I doing something wrong?
Nooz said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
For God’s sake, remove the “Simplify Demo” nonsense, you idiots.
The Viking said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
GET RID OF SIMPLIFY DEMO. What a horrendous marketing move! It’s a total fucking PR disaster! Pull any available development resources to fix this before you anger your ENTIRE customer base!
Rowyn said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:28 pm
Yes, please remove the “Simplify Demo.”
Mark McRobie said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:30 pm
You might want to clarify in your text and in places like PC World’s web site: they are reviewing the new scrub/seek feature as only for audiobooks and podcasts. If that was the case, and you couldn’t scrub/seek through music tracks, I wouldn’t buy it
sev said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:42 pm
Thanks for the fantastic upgrade. This is the one program I have installed on every computer / device I can possibly install it on! Just a note for you, I did some testing, and this program can be used to stream to the PS3 as well.
Bill said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Please, please, please get rid of that ^&%*&$*^$%@ Simplify Demo moronic and irritating piece of %*%$^%#^#$.
Thanks and have a good day,
Bill
chris said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Great updates, all of which should be free to those that have already paid for the app. I’ve been an evangelist for the app since I got it (I have a very large library of great music, and it’s not a tough sell to tell my friends they can relatively easily stream it all with your app), but there’s no way I’m recommending this to anyone if paying for upgrades is your model.
I suggest you seriously re-think this pricing model. You’ve got a killer app and I can’t imagine you guys making more money like this than with having thousands of delighted customers hyping it to all their friends.
cb said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
It makes sense that your desktop application is free. You have competition from other free services like lala and mojo and it would be foolish to charge for it.
The iPhone app however I will not consider buying until the desktop version has an option to remove the demo. Even then, because I usually listen to entire albums these new features seem worth considerably less than $3 to me as an existing paid simplify owner.
The icon color does not bother me.
albanyco said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
So since this “Simplify Demo” is a shared library of sorts… does that mean that it is going to show up in the source list for all of my AppleTV’s? I don’t mind something like this showing up in my Simplify Media interfaces… but not on my iTunes and/or it’s various broadcast points on my network… can someone clarify? thanks…
Rob said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
love the program, however i feel ripped off on the iphone app.
i paid 4$ for the first simplify media app (which is now supposed to be free? even though it still shows for 3.99$ on the app store), then had to pay to 2.99$ to ‘update’ it to 2.0. with no option to remove the trash demo user.
i know it’s only 4$ i’m complaining about, but why the hell didn’t you just update the old app to 2.0 then put out a free version?
it’s greedy devs like this that make me glad Apple has a refund policy at all.
Stephen Spence said,
April 29, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
I too recently bought the iPhone app.
As far as I can see while scalping existing customers a second time this approach of releasing 2.x as a discrete additional app is going to put people like me off recommending the product. Until now I would have been very happy to tell other iPhone users about it, today not so much.
I would have preferred a higher initial premium and free upgrades or at least some indication of the limited life of the app. Other apps I’ve bought have seen significant revisions with no additional charge..
It’s not even about the money, I probably buy an app of similar price every day or two, for me it’s the principle – I really don’t want to see the app store cluttered with multiple versions of every app and am really disappointed that simplify have taken this approach.
Travis said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
First off, I have to say I love this app. Its one of the only third party apps on my homepage.
But I am with the others here, I don’t think I should have had to buy the upgrade. It should have been free to existing users. To me, the search and playlist features are nice but not don’t make it a new 2.0 version you have to buy. I have seen many AppStore apps add more than that for Free. ake iTV for example, that app is awesome and keeps adding all the time.
The reason I came here was to find out how to remove the “Simplify Demo” user and I guess there is no way. I could see you doing that for someone setting up Simplify for the first time. But afterwards make it an option.
And yes, bring back the orange icon….the grey looks too dull.
Ryan said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Yes, please remove the Simplify Demo, or at least explain it in the KnowlegeBase. I wasted 20 minutes trying to figure out what it is and how to get rid of it. Your iPhone audience is probably full of anal-retentive people like me who hate clutter and freak out when they can’t control something. Now that I know, it’s no big deal and it sounds like you will address it very soon.
Bob said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Please remove the Simplify Demo. Can’t stand it. I love Simplify though.
matt kaune said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Love the app, as mentioned above, I agree – get rid of the demo source. Not necessary.
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
Stephen, we added several features for free to the original app, and we will continue to do with the new one.
Rob, as you saw in the App Store, the program you paid $3.99 is $3.99. If you like the new features, we hope you get the new application. If you don’t you can keep using the old one and enjoy the new desktop features.
albanyco, no, you won’t see it on your AppleTV.
shiveringgoat said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
Superb! just bought the new app from store well done guys!
:)
Alex said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:16 pm
Come on guys… that is NOT good business practise. Listen to all your paying customers and REMOVE the DEMO user from the Media list ASAP.
Roger said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:16 pm
“Demo User”. Wow. What a great way to anger your userbase.
Kengi2000 said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
The first thing I looked for was how to get rid of “Demo” as well. One of the things I like about 2.0 is the ability to pick playlists to display in iTunes. Then I end up with an entire new library listing that I don’t want. Will I get a “Demo” list for each of my friend’s once they upgrade as well? That would be REALLY annoying.
All other improvements are great and seem to work very well. I got the original app for free and used it a LOT, so the $3 for this one doesn’t seem to bad.
Thanks for the updates, but please do allow me to hide the Demo library.
Geli said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
Adding another vote to remove the Simplify Demo source, change the icon color to something less somber, and rename to Simplify. I am exactly one of those anal-retentive people mentioned above
.
I also agree with everything Francis said; I won’t repeat it because his was pretty eloquent.
Francis said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:23 pm
I don’t understand the issue with the demo user. Yes it should be possible to disable it, but until then just ignore it, it’s not gonna hurt you.
I have a question for a future iteration of Simplify. Is it possible to allow Simplify to access Genius? I’d love to be able to create/play a Genius playlist from Simplify.
–
Francis
Mark said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
Yeah, please allow us to remove the “Simplify Demo” quite irritating especially since I’ve paid for this app. I could understand having it on a free version, but there is no need for it here.
Paw Bokenfohr said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
I add my voice to the calls for the removal of the Simplify Demo shared library. I know that this part of Simplify is “free” but here’s how this little annoyance looses the company money:
I won’t buy the Simplify 2 software for the iPhone until this Simplify Demo can be removed, not because it’s a huge problem, it’s marginal, but for me, the Simplify app is a marginal benefit, a nice to have, and not worth putting up with any negatives for.
If this ability to remove the Simplify Demo part doesn’t happen before the price for the iPhone app goes back up to $6, I won’t be buying it at all – it’s worth a couple of pounds to me, but no more than that; I am 99% happy with Simplify 1, and I will happily uninstall Simplify 2 from my desktop and reinstall 1.
So, whether you think that I and others are being petty for not wanting to have iTunes and iPhones and WinAmp spammed by unwanted media servers or not, the fact is, if it’s not removed and soon, the company looses the revenue.
It’s a REAL shame, I didn’t even consider that the people behind Simplify were like that – I’d honestly (and naiveley of course) thought that they were enthusuasts!!
FrankN said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:53 pm
I can feel the flames already coming my way, but I have to ask. Did no one at Simplify Media entertain the thought that the name Brad Sucks might be offensive to some of your customers?
–
Frank
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
Paw, we dont’ make, and had no plans to make any money from the demo. It is unfortunate that you drew the conclusions you did.
Mark, and everyone else interested in the demo peer, please see our newest post.
We’ll have a new version for PC, Mac and Linux with an off switch for the Simplify Demo tomorrow. And, we’ll submit 2.02 to the App Store with a similar fix by the end of the week.
Jaime said,
April 29, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
@ Paul post 32
Thanks for answering, however the problem remains the same you put the artist on the spotlight and pushed for your media in a very questionable way. What surprise me the most ? Your surprise…
@ Tyk
You understand this is a powerful marketing tool so why do you blame people for complaining about being marketed without the choice, without even knowing it at install time?
The problem is not the marketing tool the problem is the ethics, and this is more black beard than white hat.
And how do you compile your analysis of the “demo” with the fact that supposedly it is a “troubleshooting tool”? Do you think you are a genius at marketting and they are just dumb tech people?
-”Hey Guys I have a great idea! Use your user database of music lover for music targeted advertising?”
-”Oh Great Thank you! Great Idea!! How come we didn’t think about it!”
Scott Jennings said,
April 29, 2009 @ 4:10 pm
Add my voice to those who will not use the app again until the ‘demo’ (advertising) playlist is disabled.
Give your customers the option to opt in to something like a weekly playlist, as a way to discover new artists, but simply adding it to an upgrade is bad PR. In fact, I only found out about the upgrade through a Mac site that chastised you, before firing Simplify up for the day.
Mark said,
April 29, 2009 @ 4:12 pm
As the first complainer above about the demo, thanks for the quick action.
And FWIW, the Brad Sucks demo is a great album that the guy has given away from on his website for a while now, so give it a listen before it gets removed, you might even like it…
Jaime said,
April 29, 2009 @ 4:14 pm
@ Paul again
Wow, you are certainly fast at listening your users db, I’m glad to read you are removing this as fast as it came.
So you guys seriously add this “demo” stuff as a troubleshooting tool? You mean seriously?
Ok, since you never thought of using your music lovers database for marketing, since you did not think of doing a load test, then here is a feature you probably did not think about either:
-Give us an easy way to rate/tag songs amongst users libraries and keep the records in our media players, now that is challenge ;-P.
Keep the good job.
Wayne Murphy said,
April 29, 2009 @ 4:17 pm
Ditto, Ditto and Ditto. Really man, lose this demo thing right away. People see my library you know, and it matters to me.
fbn said,
April 29, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
I haven’t the slightest idea how the “Simplify Demo” helps make troubleshooting easier. The inclusion of it, and apparent lie about reasoning behind it, makes the entire application seem disingenuous. For God’s sakes if you’re going to put it in there, at least tell us “we’re making money off of band promotion so that we can give you this software for free!” and/or let us pay $3 to get a CPU version without it! I’ve got too much stuff in my iTunes already without having to deal with this “Brad Sucks” album, because yes he certainly does.
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
@fbn, given that the artist gives away (for free to anyone who wants it) his source for the album for non-commercial purposes, there never a plan for us to make money. If we wanted to introduce new artists to generate revenue, we would let you know.
Matt said,
April 29, 2009 @ 5:14 pm
Paul, if you ever throw a big Simplify Media party, make sure you don’t invite these anti-demo people. They will show up, drink all your beer, and leave just as quickly as they arrived and complain that you’re a bad host because you didn’t buy enough.
The Tech Town » Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated said,
April 29, 2009 @ 5:43 pm
The Simplify Media app for sharing your music libraries across the net or to your iPhone has been updated to version 2.0 [...]
Chris Wade said,
April 29, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
I think that these are great features; however, I think the main problem is that this is called version 2.0, if it were Simplify Music Pro or something like that, I wouldn’t have a problem as it would be clear that this is a different version of the software.
Unfortunately this is being called version 2.0, therefore it is an upgrade and from what I understand of the terms of service, upgrades for applications on the iphone are supposed to be free per Apple’s TOS.
So, is this version 2.0 (aka an upgrade) or is this a new, more sophisticated “PRO” version?
For the record, I got my original one for free and considering the amount that I use this product, I don’t mind paying for it, to support the Developer, but if I have to keep paying for upgrades. then there will be a major problem.
The only other feature I could see creating a new product for (and legitimately being able to charge as a result) is Simplify Music & Video
paul said,
April 29, 2009 @ 8:15 pm
Chris, a Pro version is a great description.
New PC, Mac and Linux versions with the demo peer set of off are now available. Please see the blog post above this one for all the details. A revised iPhone version (2.02) will be submitted as soon as possible.
Travis said,
April 29, 2009 @ 9:20 pm
+1 on the Pro version. I like that description myself.
Chris Wade said,
April 29, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
Why wasn’t it marketed that way in the first place? I can’t even take credit for that idea, it’s been posted in various comments about this. As I said, I don’t mind paying for the software since I got for free originally, but I expect to only have to pay for it ONCE and get the free upgrades per Apple’s TOS.
Dank said,
April 29, 2009 @ 10:43 pm
Paul, I really feel bad for you. Everyone feels entitled to have everything for free. Your hard work just nets you hatred from idiots. It’s depressing, really.
Paw Bokenfohr said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:20 pm
Actually, not everyone thinks they should have everything for free, that was *my* and I think others whole point.
The thing is, when people (like me) *are* paying for software, unbelievably I know, we tend to have the audacity to want it to be how we want. Shocking, I know. So, yes, you’re right, it’s us the users who are paying for this (with the iPhone app purchases) who are the ones who should be chastised for not sitting down, shutting up, and taking it however it’s given.
Seriously, though, to the Simplify people, this is a good tool, but you really can’t be shocked by the reaction to this new “feature” – in a world of spam and marketing angles, you are really honestly saying that you didn’t realise how this would be perceived?
FWIW (I suspect very little) I am really pleased and thankful that you’re removing it for us. It’s really appreciated, and I wiill be buying the app once it’s done.
Thanks.
Thorsten said,
April 29, 2009 @ 11:33 pm
I just started using and your software on my ipod touch and I do like it, I think I will upgrade to 2.0 as well.
It would be great, if I could also use it on my android phone. Do you have any plans on developing an android version of your software? I would love to buy it!
Another idea I have is a non installed web client, that can play my music, when i am on a public computer or at work, this would be of great value to me too!
john said,
April 30, 2009 @ 12:01 am
can someone tellme why i can only get the demo simplify when i have signed up for 2.0 wich cost 2.99US.
Onnce installed and i sign in using the same screen anmes,i get my screen name on my iphone but followed by a demo of something else.
what have i done wrong???
paul said,
April 30, 2009 @ 12:24 am
John, the best way to get support is to use the Troubleshooting tool on the desktop or the send logs option in the iPhone app. That way we can review basic program diagnostic information.
That said, have you tried this troubleshooting tip? I can’t connect from my iPhone That you see the demo is a sign that the iPhone is working fine.
john said,
April 30, 2009 @ 12:37 am
Thanks Paul,,
I have sent the logs to the website twice as i attempted twice to install the application.
i have also been through all the troubleshooting and there seems to be now solution for me.
i understand that i have a connection as the demo is displayed next to my screen name but fail to see my library on my iphone.
i have 2009 songs in my desk top and they are displayed on the pc medea application.
i have am just missing the songs on the iphone.
I shall try again and uninstall all apps and try again.
thank
you for ur advaice.
john
Chris Wade said,
April 30, 2009 @ 12:38 am
I am having the same problem as John at the moment, but I thought it might be because my computer is in the U.S. and I am in the Philippines for work at the moment, I was going to give it at least until I got back in the U.S. before trying t figure it out.
john said,
April 30, 2009 @ 12:45 am
anyway,
I have just installed againa and have the same issues. so frustrating as i have followed all the instructions and see no reason why i can see my songs on the iphone.
whats frustrating is my screen nae is displayed on my iphone but hyphoned with demo which tells me there is a connection.
I have also linked the songs to my music and not through itunes. could this be the problem?
paul said,
April 30, 2009 @ 1:19 am
John, I have logs from your iPhone, but I really need them from your PC or Mac. To send them, on your PC or Mac, in Simplify Media, pick the Troubleshooting option from the Simplify (Mac) or Help (PC) menu. Follow the steps and select Report Issue. Finally add a description like “can’t see this computer on my iPhone.” We’re shutting down for the night but we’ll check them out in the morning.
cxspan said,
April 30, 2009 @ 1:48 am
Really? People are complaining about $3? I can find that in my couch cushions! I happen to be one of the people that recently (Feb ‘09) purchased the 1.x version of the app, and I happen to think a measly $3 is well worth the upgrade.
I’m using the new version now and it ROCKS!! When I saw that you added a favorites option my first thought was “SAH-WEET!” followed by “…but I bet you can’t favorite and entire album.”. But you CAN! Also, love the scrubber option and it works really well. Overall system seems more responsive and there’s less flickering on the lyrics/artist info screens taking place while buffering. Great work!!
A few suggestions…
1) When adding an album to favorites which contains songs that are already favorited, the warning about duplicate tracks displays (sweet!) but does not give you the option to Cancel (which it does if you’re adding a single track). It would be nice if the favorited tracks could display an icon rather than the “+” to indicate they have already be favorited as well.
2) I second what another poster said about being able to clear the entire favorites list at once.
3) It would be nice if artists could be grouped in a case-insensitive manner. For example, if I have “OAR” and “Oar” in my Artist list, it would be nice to only see them once. Obviously I could fix this on my end but I thought it’d be a nice feature.
4) Searching could be made easier if suggestions appeared below the search field while typing. For example, if you selected the “artist” textfield and typed “n” an alphabetical list of artists beginning with “n” would appear in the list.
5) When viewing the Albums list, it would be nice if the album artist(s) name(s) appeared below the album title. For compilations it could list the first few artists (whatever fit on the line).
6) Music plays from the iPhone speakers when headphones aren’t plugged in even when the mute switch is flipped on. I’d love a setting to change this behavior!
7) iTunes-independent auto-playlists would be amazing. For example, a “Recently Played” playlist that actually showed what was recently played via SM.
Just a few suggestion for version 2.1 and beyond
Keep up the INCREDIBLE work!!
Tyk said,
April 30, 2009 @ 3:41 am
@Jaime:
Because I download SimplifyMedia for free. Having one extra little Playlist on my iTunes wasn’t the end of my world. It’s just a Playlist.
Back when I first used SimplifyMedia, they used to put up an Amazon sale box. Now THAT was annoying and I was happy to see it go. But a stupid little playlist? On top of that, it wasn’t EVEN the cool marketing idea I thought it was. And yet, people are on here acting like these guys did something so damn awful.
Obviously, the developers made a mistake of some sort in not allowing it to be turned off right away. Whatever. But to post such ridiculous comments over a PLAYLIST is just plain silly. Sorry, just my 2 cents. It’s really easy to just come to a blog, whine, complain, threaten when you haven’t invested an ounce of work into developing the product. And yes, I realize people are paying for iPhone apps, but seriously, I pay more for a coffee at Starbucks. A lot of apps are a couple bucks in the App Store and they plain suck.
Nate said,
April 30, 2009 @ 5:42 am
Any chance we’ll see a favorites feature in the desktop version? That would be AMAZING!
KC said,
April 30, 2009 @ 5:49 am
This should have been an update to the app, not a seperate app. Those folks who have paid for the first one, should not have to pay for this one.
Douglas said,
April 30, 2009 @ 6:22 am
This is an amazing app. Wouldn’t mind paying even more for it.
Congrats and keep up the great work. It’s really appreciated.
Cheers!
Les said,
April 30, 2009 @ 7:27 am
I can not believe how tight people can be. I bought the original when it first was released and had no problem paying for the upgrade @ $3 to pay the people behind this fantastic app. When the new iPhone software comes out you will also have to pay for that too as in the past so what is the big deal?
To all you people complaining about the $3 geta life and stop being so tigh and pay or just stay with version 1.0 and SHUT UP. GREAT APP AND WELL WORTH THE $3 KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK.
HighTechDad said,
April 30, 2009 @ 11:01 am
Just a follow up to my issue with connectivity between my host (Mac) and “drone” (PC). I was able to restore connectivity between the two but using the tried & true fix of “rebooting.” Everything works great now.
-HTD
donedidit said,
April 30, 2009 @ 1:33 pm
pure and simple: bad practice, no matter what the cost. almost as bad as Bento going from a 1.0 release (where no updates were EVER released) to 2.0 at a cost of $49.95. Their rationale was that “one low cost is simpler than complicated upgrade pricing!” Tactics like this are greed at its worst. Vote with your downloads and pass on this.
Weeeeee said,
April 30, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
Hi donedidit,
You’re an idiot.
Thanks and have a great day.
-w
Scauuuuught said,
May 1, 2009 @ 10:29 am
Okay, two questions.
Question 1: What is the streaming bit rate of music from version 2.0 to 2.0 of the iPhone App. I haven’t been able to get a straight answer anywhere.
Question 2: Is it possible to connect Simplify Media to the XBox 360 if you are a Mac user??
Joseph Dennis said,
May 1, 2009 @ 11:56 am
I am having a strange problem where when when I click on the simplify 2.0 icon and try to play a song it takes me back to the start screen on my iphone. they only way to solve this is to restart my iphone.
A couple of quick thoughts. I downloaded the app for free so i have no problem paying for the upgrade. But, I do agree. If you bought the app it should be a free update.
The demo playlist is not that big of a deal for me. Not sure why everyone is freaking out about it.
The feature to resume after a call and search is worth the $$.
E. said,
May 1, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
Les, well said! Bought v.1 two weeks ago well knowing there was a follow up coming. Bought this one too at the day of release. I don’t have the slightest problems paying less than a glass of beer for such a nice piece of software!
But there is a small drawback: when playing flac files there is no cover art… Will this be fixed?
Also I’d like to know too what the streaming bit rate is.
paul said,
May 1, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
cxspan, and everyone upthread with feature suggestions, thanks. we just submitted 2.0.2 for approval and it contains a compiliations setting. next step: figure out what is in 2.0.3, 2.1, etc.
Scauuuuught, on 1, it depends on the source file and the actual detected bandwidth, so there are no hard and fast answers. On 2, yes. Pushing to XBox is platform independent.
Joseph, I’d like to get your crash logs so we can investigate. To send them, sync your device to your computer and then send us the most recent simplify entry here:
- Mac OS X :~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/
- Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data \Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter/
- Windows Vista: C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Apple
computer
\Logs\CrashReporter/MobileDevice/
support at simplifymedia dot com
E. if the cover art is embedded in the tags it should show. This is true for all of the formats we support (FLAC included).
E. said,
May 3, 2009 @ 1:41 am
Paul, displaying cover art for flac files seems a little bit erratic – I have some files within the _same_ album which display, some which don’t. All covers are embedded in the tag. I checked all the tags in Media Monkey and on the detail level in Mp3tag but couldn’t find the difference. First I thought the type of cover art (other or front) might be the difference…
If you want I send you examples (little bit big of course)
Is there nobody using flac experiencing the same problems?
Kristian said,
May 6, 2009 @ 2:10 am
Great app, I really get a lot of use out of it. Paying for v2.0 didn’t really bother me as I was lucky enough to get in on the free download of the first version back when it was just spreading. Now I’ve given something back.
About bitrates and streaming, would it be possible to set that up on the desktop end – an advanced setting to let the user decide what bitrate to stream at.
Possibly make an auto setting that selects based on network. I think at present it’s defined in the XML file, but pulling it out as a setting would be nice, and probably very little work. It’d also make it a bit more transparent what exactly is being streamed.
The 3G network has significantly higher BW than the EDGE network, and it would be nice if it adapted the streaming speed for that. Not entirely sure how that plays into roaming from one network type to another, though.
It seems in v2.0 there are two seekbars – the little one in the top (didn’t that scrub the music as well, just very imprecisely – or am I misremembering?), and the larger new one. Could we get rid of the small one at the top, to clean up the interface?
Regards
Tyson said,
May 7, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
I’m attempting to run the SimplifyPeer binary from the simplify_server.sh wrapper on a headless Debian Lenny box. While it seems to read in some attributes from SimplifyMedia.ini it’s ignoring the UPnP options.
deedee said,
May 10, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
I upgraded to 2.0 for iphone as well as my PC,MAC and Ubuntu. I am able to listen to .flac songs on ubuntu and pc but I dont even see them on my media list in iphone. What do i need to do to make flac to work on iphone?
Henrik said,
May 11, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
I’ve got the same problem as Tyson: How do I turn on UPnP broadcast when running SimplifyMedia in server mode on Linux?
Flora said,
May 13, 2009 @ 11:56 am
guys… personaly i love simplifymedia… but since this simplify demo appeard, i’m really hating it… can you please hear our request to remove it?
if this continues, i’ll just delete my simplifymedia… it’s not the same with this annoying demo….
please, keep simplify alive….
paul said,
May 15, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
Flora, just download the latest version. As the blog post right above this one explains, it has been available since April 29.
http://www.simplifymedia.com/download.html
Eamonn said,
May 19, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
Thanks for the Simplify Media apps. I can see my libraries and those of all my friends who are “live” on my big screen now via my PS3 which is then connected to my hifi system for playback.. However, it fails to play any track at all, even though the PS3 can handle both MP3 and AAC. Any ideas as to why?
visuvius said,
June 17, 2009 @ 10:48 pm
Lovin your product since day one.
Having said that, I really, really want to know what the bitrate is of the audio I’m listening to. I’ve asked before a couple of times over the last year or so and I never got a response. Is the audio bitrate something you guys are trying to keep under wraps and if so why? I think its pretty clear to everyone that we’re not listening to 128 kbps streams; my guess is Simplify Server is uploading at like 64 kpbs or something.
Considering its a pretty huge spec of the program, why not just let people know. I’m sure you’re aware that Pandora has a “High Quality Mode” option and the audio sounds awesome with that program, noticeable better than what I here through Simplify. Why not have a feature similiar to this? A previous poster commented on having the option to select the bitrate you want to upload at. He too was ignored.
So, can you please just address the bitrate issue? Thanks.
visuvius said,
June 17, 2009 @ 10:54 pm
I’m sorry, I just sawy your response to Scauuuuught regarding the bitrate issue
His question: “Question 1: What is the streaming bit rate of music from version 2.0 to 2.0 of the iPhone App. I haven’t been able to get a straight answer anywhere.”
Your answer: “Scauuuuught, on 1, it depends on the source file and the actual detected bandwidth, so there are no hard and fast answers”
I’m sorry but I kind of don’t buy this. Lets say the source file is 128kbps, which is already low but it sounds decent, basically cd quality and most people have tons of files encoded at this bit rate, so that nullifies your first point of “it depends on the source file”. Next, you mention the actual detected bandwidth. Well, I’ve been listening to Simplify for a while now and it pretty much sounds the same whether I’m on 3G or wifi or Edge (if it stays connected).
So, again that answer doesn’t really explain the question. How about this, what would you say is the average bit rate quality I will hear through Simplify?
I hope you can address this once and for all. If you do a google search, you’ll see lots of people are wondering the same thing.
Thanks for an innovative product.