Simplify Media – now with Photos!
We are live, in the App Store and with a new look!
Build 1432 adds support for photos to Simplify for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu. Enjoy remote access to your picture collection with the new Simplify Viewer, with iPhoto or Windows Explorer, or with the new Simplify Photo app for iPhone and iPod touch — on sale for $.99.
The free desktop version handles music and photos. You’ll receive an upgrade notice later today, or you can get the latest here.
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Decide what to share
Pick folders or all or part of your iPhoto library, including Events, Albums and Faces. |
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Pick whom to share with
You have complete control over who gets to see your photos, and your existing music friends have photo privileges turned off by default. To turn on photo access for a friend, use Manage Users. |
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Enjoy photos with the Simplify Viewer
View photos by folder, timeline and the Simplify Map. If available, you can browse by iPhoto Albums, Events and Faces. Save files you like as well. |
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Use iPhoto and Explorer too
In iPhoto on Mac, remote computers appear under Shares (just like in iTunes). On Windows we create a virtual drive you can access with Explorer. |
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There’s even enhanced UPnP integration
We’ve added photo support for Xbox 360 and improved UPnP music support so that it works with the Sonos iPhone controller. |
Most importantly for iPhone and iPod touch users, we’ve created a new application optimized for photo viewing. Access all of your pictures from home on your mobile device without the hassles of syncing, using all of your local storage or uploading to a web site. Simplify Photo is available today in the App Store, and we’ve put it on sale at $.99 for all Simplify fans.
- Browse by folder & timeline, or GPS location on a map
- View thumbnails, individual photos or slide show
- Access iPhoto Albums, Events, Faces and Places
- Search by tags, comments, title or description
- Save an image to your local Camera Roll
Thanks again to our Beta testers and our friends at Six for assistance with design and art direction.
Steve said,
August 19, 2009 @ 6:50 am
I’m just curious as to why this wasn’t integrated with Simplify Music 2. I guess it would have introduced too much for a single app to handle. If it had been part of an upgrade, I would have tried it out, but I’m not sure I’ll use it enough to purchase a separate program. I look forward to other’s reviews, though. I’m often the late-adopter, so who knows… I could be buying it soon.
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 6:58 am
Steve, yes. Update speed and overall performance were our primary concerns. With a computer, Simplify can process music and photo file list changes in the background, and there is a powerful processor ensuring fast database queries. The iPhone version does not have those advantages, so splitting the functionality was the best option. Specialized apps also allow us to optimize the flow for each media type.
scott said,
August 19, 2009 @ 8:19 am
i’ve been using the beta and for anyone curious about this – it works great. no need to save your entire photo library to your iphone/touch with this. only requested feature would be zoom (maybe its there, but i haven’t figured it out).
also – question – why the logo change? i haven’t seen a blog post or anything. i liked the old one.
Frank said,
August 19, 2009 @ 9:40 am
Is a FreeBSD version of the simplify server still planned? I saw some news about it a few months ago but nothing further. Thanks!
Malacandra said,
August 19, 2009 @ 10:23 am
Sadly, this crashes when scanning my collection! This is without enabling any of the new photo features.
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 10:33 am
Malacandra, sorry abut the serious error but there should be a workaround. A crash can happen when we scan a damaged file with damaged header information. If you send us your logs using Troubleshooting > Report Issue, hopefuly we can pinpoint the problematic song.
Andrew said,
August 19, 2009 @ 10:45 am
I get a crash as well. The program consistently bombs out on “Building File List” within 5-10 seconds of being launched. The crashes happen quickly enough that I can’t get to the troubleshooting menu before the program quits.
This is on the Mac version. For the time being I restored to the old version using Time Machine.
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 10:49 am
Andrew, can you go to Logs/CrashReporter and send us the entry? support at simplify. thanks!
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 11:06 am
Scott, zoom isn’t enabled, but we are working on adding it soon.
Paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 11:41 am
I to am getting crashes every time I run the app.
I tried to send an error report by typing out the problem in TextEdit and then quickly copy and pasting it within the comments box on the application. I do have a very large library of files in iTunes.
Such a shame because this app was quite useful. This evening I have just installed it on both my Linux Mint and Windows netbooks and played around on my Xbox 360.
When it works, it works great but this recent update has screwed it up on my iMac.
I have sent you the crash reports.
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Paul, with Miles and Andrews help we have isolated the problem and are working on a fix.
Jay said,
August 19, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
i get the same issue with simplify media crashing while it is updating the file list.
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
Jay, thanks. We are testing a fix right now. Paul reports back that it works for him, and once our automated suite finished running, we’ll make it generally available. My apologies for the inconvenience.
paul said,
August 19, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
The fix is released:
http://www.simplifymedia.com/download.html
The crash was introduced when we made an attempt to scan files with damaged VBR headers. That worked, but it created a new, more serious problem not detected during the beta. I guess testing with a few hundred folks is quite different that with a few hundred thousand.
If you had a scan problem, please download 1433 and let us know if you still have issues. Thanks for the help.
The Far Edge » Blog Archive » Simplify Media Launches New Photo App; Simplify Photos said,
August 19, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
[...] can read more about Simplify Photos on the Simplify Media blog. Simplify Photos is $0.99 and available from the App Store today. Below you’ll find a demo video [...]
Jorge said,
August 19, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
Hi, under “Decide what to share section” for picking folders or all or part of my iPhoto library, including Events, Albums and Faces. I cannot select between my events. They do no appear under the tab at all. I have iPhoto 08, should not be any problem right? If I choose entire library works like charm wiht my iPhone app, really nice.. But I don’t want to share my entire library. I want to select between events as advertised.
rainbowwig said,
August 19, 2009 @ 8:57 pm
I tried to download but get the following from Windows Installer: “The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation.” I have not previously experienced this problem with software downloads. I tried turning off my Norton 360 and PC firewalls, but nothing. Please advise, thanks.
Ry-man said,
August 20, 2009 @ 6:41 am
What resolution are you reformatting pictures to for the photo sharing? Is there any way to increase the resolution/quality even if it will slow down the transfer? Thanks.
Nige said,
August 20, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Oh come on. First you charge for an upgrade from version 1 to 2, now you’re charging for photo sharing. I’m a computer programmer by trade and I know there’s no reason why photo sharing couldn’t have been included in the standard app. There is only one reason why you decided to do this – to increase your revenue at the expense of your existing customers. This is not the way that the App Store business model works. Repeat business is more important than short-term sales, and I’ll be surprised if you get any.
JMTee said,
August 20, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
In the SimplifyMedia photo preferences I can’t select ‘Import iPhoto 6 or later’ with my iMac G5; the option is grayed out. With my MacBook Air this was not the case. Both Macs are running Mac OS X 10.5.8 and latest version of iPhoto ‘09; i.e. 8.1. Please advise.
Marc Benner said,
August 20, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
I am shocked so many people are complaining about paying for such a wonderful app! I use the music player all the time! I have used it from coast to coast and for 15 hours drove from the midwest to the east coast and lost connection only about 10 times, which for driving through the middle of nowhere I was amazed! I even used it from my home server computer in Illinois to Norway, Denmark and Sweden on WiFi without any issues on my iPhone. I also did the beta test of the photo and love it! My wife and I are photographers and we use both programs all the time now.
I run a music collection of 450GB worth of tracks which comes to over 40,000 songs and it never skips a beat!
I really wish people would get off of this companies backs about making you pay $5.99 or $.99 for a great product that is worth far more money! Worth every penny!
I will be a repeat customer if every version is more expensive. Keep the apps separate, they are 2 different programs and I see no reason to link them!
Cedric said,
August 20, 2009 @ 5:12 pm
Hi,
Is it me or this latest version is very CPU hungry?
While idling, Simplify Media is taking from 5 to 20% of my CPU time (after the library scans are finished).
I have 10 100 pix and 3300 tracks shared on my dual Core2 Dueo 2.66Ghz iMac with 2 gigs of ram.
btw: thanks for this awesome software!
JMTee said,
August 20, 2009 @ 9:37 pm
I’m not complaining. I’ve paid – and for the functionality promised – not even much. However, I would like to get the program working as advertised now; see my question (#20) above.
DJFriar said,
August 21, 2009 @ 5:01 am
So far it works great (I’m only using the iPhoto feature at the moment). But I have a question/request:
With regards to the Photo abilities, I need to have more specific access than “all or nothing”. Is there a way to give Susie access to Event A, Bob access to Event B and Jane access to all Events?
Todd said,
August 21, 2009 @ 3:28 pm
I started using this last night and really enjoy it. My favorite feature is the ability to search by tags. This is the first software like this that I have found that can do this. One question. Can I search by multiple tags to help narrow my results? For example “Vacation” and “Beach” to only show photos with both vacation and beach as tags? Maybe it can do this now but I can’t seem to figure it out.
While I am using this on an iPhone, I also wonder if you have any Windows Mobile plans in the future?
Thanks for your help and the software – keep up the good work!
Billy said,
August 21, 2009 @ 6:00 pm
I also cannot select iPhoto as a source for my photos to share. The option is ghosted on my Intel mac Mac Pro. But, on my unibody macbook, the option IS available. Both macs have the latest OS X and iPhoto versions. One unique thing on the Mac Pro is that I have my iPhoto library on a separate hard drive (sill internal, just not the boot drive) Can you suggest anything for this?
Chris said,
August 22, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
I’m having the same problem as JMTee (#20), and Billy (#26); iPhoto as a source is now greyed out. I’m running iPhoto ‘09 (v. 8.1) on a dual G5 tower with OSX 10.5.8. On first launch the preference actually WAS available and I was able to access my photos on my iPhone but subsequently it is no longer working on the computer side.
ibaneye said,
August 24, 2009 @ 9:13 am
Hey there, lovin’ the apps! I have one weird issue, with the Music app: It won’t stream my iTunes Plus tracks. CD’s that I ripped to m4a play fine, but iTunes m4a’s won’t play. Interestingly, older iTunes m4p’s play fine (on authorized machines). This is the case on two different PC’s (one Mac, one XP). XBox won’t play m4a’s either, but I think that’s an XBox issue? Everything else works great!
Billy said,
August 24, 2009 @ 10:28 am
Now I can’t use Simplify at all. It keeps losing my login info in the preferences pane. (I’m the same Billy from #26) I deleted the application from my mac pro and reinstalled it and still get the same issues. Paul, can you respond to this thread with some info? Thanks, love the app!
fgd said,
August 24, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
Hi
Were is the video streaming app. I have lots of home videos I would love to be able to stream to the iphone.
Also I would love to see a NAS integration on QNAP’s products.
Trey Johnson said,
August 24, 2009 @ 5:34 pm
I don’t need the photo functionality, but it seems that I have to pay to upgrade and keep using it. If I’m wrong, please let me know how I can continue using this product.
paul said,
August 24, 2009 @ 5:56 pm
Trey, the desktop version of Simplify Media for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu is free, as it has been for over 2 years. However, we require our users run recent (free) builds so that we can provide support.
fdg, we are working on it.
Billy, I suspect you already have, but please use the Troubleshooting > Report Issue option to contact support. That way we’ll have your logs and system information. Although we sometimes try, it is really hard to provide support via blog comments, as I am sure you appreciate.
ibaneye, make sure you are running 1434. That will solve the problem.
Chris, I have logs from JMTee. Can you make sure we have yours too? This is a problem would really like to understand.
El Ejefe said,
August 25, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
Same as Jorge (#16)
I cannot select Albums. As a matter of fact, my Events are listed under Albums. There is nothing listed under Events at all . I also have iPhoto 08 and don’t want to share my entire library.
Any help?
paul said,
August 25, 2009 @ 1:50 pm
If we are having trouble with your iPhoto library, the best way to help us would be to:
1) select Troubleshooting from the main Simplify menu
2) hit the Report Issue button
3) describe the problem and include your iPhoto version number
4) send the report along with your logs
5) in a follow-up email to support at simplifymedia, compress and attach your iPhoto library xml file and include its path
That way we can look at your logs and your photo meta data.
If we aren’t finding your iPhoto lib at all (or we have selected the wrong one), the best thing to try would be:
1) shut down Simplify
2) start iPhoto with the Option key held down
3) select the correct iPhoto library
4) quit iPhoto
5) start Simplify, select Preferences and then Photo sharing
The sequence is important. Simplify checks for your iPhoto library location on startup and iPhoto only writes changes when it is shutting down.
El Jefe said,
August 25, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
Thanks.
It finds my iPhoto lib just fine. I reported the issue, though I’m pretty much over it.
Better luck next time.
Jorge said,
August 26, 2009 @ 9:01 am
Problem solved: problem stated and posted @ (16) and (34) for EL Ejefe
Ok, here is how my problem was fixed. As mentioned before I was able to select entire library but no selection for events at all. The first thing that the guy for simplify asked was to verify permissions for the “iphoto library” as well as if I had this file “iPhotoMain.db”, the latest is a file that is created only for ‘iPhoto09″. After going back and forward with simplify support with no success. I decided to upgrade I decided to install “iPhoto 09″. Guess what. Problem solved, no I can select whatever I want including, events/albums and even faces. It seems that the problem is about compatibility for this feature on 06, 07 and 08 iphoto.
So El Ejefe, if you want to fix your problem, installing 09 will do it. After you install 09, you need to delete this file “/User/Library/Preferences/com.simplifymedia.Manager.plist, and restart simplify media. The file will be generated again but with 09 db, then enjoy your selections
.
I guess you might don’t want to spend $79 for “iLife 09″ upgrade.
Thanks simplify media support anyway, for quick emails responses!
-Jorge
El Jefe said,
August 26, 2009 @ 11:22 pm
Jorge…
Thanks a ton. I am in the middle of correspondence with Simplify’s support team. I had just informed them that I couldn’t find the “iPhotoMain.db” file they were asking about.
This explains it.
I’ll have to figure out my next move.
Thanks again, to both you and Paul.
mjvmpxrj said,
August 27, 2009 @ 1:16 am
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Jon said,
August 27, 2009 @ 9:16 am
I keep getting stuck on ‘initializing’. I’m on 10.5.8 and no firewall. It used to work great before the update.
martip said,
August 27, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
iPhoto option grayed out, most of the time.
And when it’s available, it shows nothing in Events, events and albums in Albums and nothing in Faces… Even if try to share the entire library, nothing is actually shared.
I sent a report but I’m not getting answers…
My log in (~/Library/Logs/SimplifyMedia/SimplifyMedia.log) is full of errors concerning iPhoto.
The iPhone app I bought to see my photos is pretty useless :-S
I love the idea behind SimplifyMedia but I wish I could see it work…
paul said,
August 27, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
I haven’t heard back from Joe, but for the reports we’ve had of the Mac version stuck at “initializing” a clean install seems to solve the problem. Do a spotlight search for “simplify” to remove the application, preference file, etc and then re-download.
For the folks who have contacted us with iPhoto library related problems, if the choice isn’t available at all, the issue is that iPhoto hasn’t written the library location to its preference file.
1) stop Simplify
2) start iPhoto with the option key down
3) pick your library
4) exit iPhoto and start Simplify
The harder case for us to understand is the one Martin mentions — missing albums. Some information from users suggests that this may have to do with upgrade options from one version of iPhoto to the next but we are having a hard time pinning this down. If this is happening for you, when you send in an issue report, please let us know your current iPhoto version and any previous versions you may have used.
Jason said,
August 28, 2009 @ 4:35 pm
Will SimplifyMedia work across the Internet with the new “Wake on Demand” feature in Mac OS X Snow Leopard? It would be great to let your home machine go to sleep while running Simplify, so that it would only wake up when you wanted to connect your second machine to it via Simplify.
See “http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3774″ regarding this feature. I did not know about it until it was pointed out on MacRumors today!
Thanks
Jason
Ziv said,
August 29, 2009 @ 10:02 am
I have an issue with the latest version of the software. It’s not loading my entire library like it used to. My library is about 15k songs and it’s all mp3s. Missing music ranges from vbr to a set 320kbps. I’ve reset the sharing type, I’ve shut Simplify and my PC down and restarted but that hasn’t helped.
Is there anything you can recommend that would fix this?
Ziv said,
August 29, 2009 @ 5:27 pm
So, after going through the logs I saw that mp3s were being skipped from being added to the library because they were missing the xing header (I guess all the files that weren’t getting added were vbr). I found a program (windows) called “VBRFix” that solved all my issues with missing songs in the library.
paul said,
August 30, 2009 @ 8:23 am
Ziv, thanks, that is exactly correct. Simplify skips songs with corrupt first frame information (even though a local program like iTunes can play the song). Previous versions of Simplify were more tolerant of file header problems, but we discovered that this created instability in some sitations.
In addition to VBRFix (hydrogen audio discussion), users have also reported success with:
MP3val – http://www.gromkov.com/faq/repair/mp3_validator.html
Dr Tag – http://www.drtag.de/en/description_mp3rt.htm
Foobar – http://www.foobar2000.org/ “rebuild mp3 stream” option
Ron Sager said,
August 30, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
Is there any way to retain folder/subfolder relationship within Simplify Photo? I have it pointed to a folder with several embedded subfolders,and it presents the files at the deepest folder level,which leaves me with dozens of folders in alphabetical order.
Ziv said,
August 31, 2009 @ 11:26 am
@paul
I did have a question that I can’t seem to figure out though:
When using the ‘music folder’ sharing type, how do you have playlists show up for users? I have a folder in the main music folder named “playlists” but they don’t show up.
Tom said,
August 31, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
I am running 1434 and am still getting a crash of the program on my computer during the updating of the file list. I have ~65K files and it scans 100% of the files, then during “updating file list”, it crashes within a few seconds. Probably a damaged file. Anyone know where I can take a look at logs to help figure out while files are causing the problem?
Richard said,
September 1, 2009 @ 4:28 am
@ Ziv ,Paul
Thanks for the VBRFix suggestion, my library of music had nearly halved after the recent update, running VBRFix seems to have restored a great many of them, so at least I know how to troubleshoot the problem files.
Now the question I need to figure out is…What is introducing the problem, is it the source I get them from (eMusic), or one of the music players I use to update the tag information (iTunes, Zune, Media Player)..
?
craig said,
September 3, 2009 @ 5:24 am
I was wondering the same thing as Jason above, but the question seemed to be skipped over. i just got my copy of snow leopard and rushed to get simplify media, just to come to find that it doesn’t wake over wan. Snow leopard now supports this for many things, but I can not find out how to get it to wake up for Simplify. Is there a way to make it work?
TJ said,
September 3, 2009 @ 9:26 am
Paul,
Can simplifymedia share all kinds of pictures, or only jpeg? I’m specifically concerned with CR2 pics.
DJFriar said,
September 10, 2009 @ 5:06 am
Are there any plans to allow more granular access to the iPhoto libraries?
Also, can someone explain the UPnP options better? Is it only applicable to music, or will it affect photos? I use my iPhone as a remote iPhoto when I am home the most, so anything that makes it faster is good for me (35k images and climbing).
paul said,
September 15, 2009 @ 1:27 pm
UPnP is for photos and music. On photo formats, most are supported but the program can’t handle RAW files at this point.
To ward off comment spam, I’m going to close this thread. Feel free to comment on either of the two new ones, or, if your are having a problem, please send us a Report using the Troubleshooting tool.