Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Internet, iTunes, Software Update, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
The Simplify Media app for sharing your music libraries across the net or to your iPhone has been updated to version 2.0 (previous coverage here). If you have the app installed on your Mac, PC or Linux computer, you’ll see an update notice real soon now. The update includes stability improvements, the ability to share only selected playlists, and a much-desired feature that lets you send your shares to Sonos, Roku or XBox 360 devices. The app now supports FLAC, in addition to the usual MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple Lossless codecs.
Simplify has also added a version 2.0 for the iPhone. The original app will continue to work fine, and it’s free. The new version, Simplify Music 2.0 [App Store link], is $2.99US and adds the ability to search your music library from afar, tag tracks as favorites, create on-the-fly playlists and a ’scrub bar’ so you have more playback control in podcasts and audio books.
I had no issues with the install on my desktop Mac, but the software irritatingly and without warning put a new share in iTunes called ‘Simplify Demo’ with an album by Brad Turcotte. I could have lived without it, and can’t figure out how to send it back to the netherworld from which it came.
Update: I wasn’t the only person ticked off about the demo share the software installed. Check the comments at the bottom of this page on the Simplify Media site. What were these guys thinking? What a creative way to ruin a good reputation. Also, a couple of our readers correctly point out that version one of the iPhone app was free, but is now $3.99.
A further update: Paul Joyce of Simplify Media tells me they will release a new build with an ‘off’ switch to get rid of the demo share. Good move. It’s nice to see a company acknowledge a mistake and move quickly to fix it.
Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Moron With Knife Forgets About AppleCare - Gets Stabby with MacBook air
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
So you bought a MacBook air and the hinge broke. You could just take it to Apple and point out that your six alleged friends have had the same issue and that apple needs to fix the problem.
CollegeHumor video on Twitter is stupid
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
I love the CollegeHumor site, but a recent video that makes fun of Twitter is brain-dead stupid. The premise is: What if people did Twitter in real life? So the video shows a guy (a comedian, it turns out) standing in public in a big city loudly saying the kinds of things people say on Twitter.
What stupid about this is that this is the opposite of Twitter.
The guy saying banal things in public is forcing strangers who don’t want anything to do with him to listen to his comments. Twitter is all about saying things to people who have gone out of their way to hear what you have to say.
Ironically, the comedian in the video mentions his comedy show. A comedy show is exactly like Twitter. People go there to hear him talk, just like on Twitter.
I’m all for criticizing Twitter. But it’s simply stupid to criticize Twitter for forcing comments on other people, when the sole feature that makes Twitter different is that you cannot force strangers to listen to you.
Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Internet, iTunes, Software Update, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
The Simplify Media app for sharing your music libraries across the net or to your iPhone has been updated to version 2.0 (previous coverage here). If you have the app installed on your Mac, PC or Linux computer, you’ll see an update notice real soon now. The update includes stability improvements, the ability to share only selected playlists, and a much-desired feature that lets you send your shares to Sonos, Roku or XBox 360 devices. The app now supports FLAC, in addition to the usual MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple Lossless codecs.
Simplify has also added a version 2.0 for the iPhone. The original app will continue to work fine, and it’s free. The new version, Simplify Music 2.0 [App Store link], is $2.99US and adds the ability to search your music library from afar, tag tracks as favorites, create on-the-fly playlists and a ’scrub bar’ so you have more playback control in podcasts and audio books.
I had no issues with the install on my desktop Mac, but the software irritatingly and without warning put a new share in iTunes called ‘Simplify Demo’ with an album by Brad Turcotte. I could have lived without it, and can’t figure out how to send it back to the netherworld from which it came.
Update: I wasn’t the only person ticked off about the demo share the software installed. Check the comments at the bottom of this page on the Simplify Media site. What were these guys thinking? What a creative way to ruin a good reputation. Also, a couple of our readers correctly point out that version one of the iPhone app was free, but is now $3.99.
A further update: Paul Joyce of Simplify Media tells me they will release a new build with an ‘off’ switch to get rid of the demo share. Good move. It’s nice to see a company acknowledge a mistake and move quickly to fix it.
Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Remote media sharing tool Simplify Media updated originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Simplify Media update, take 2
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Software Update, iPhone, App Store
Earlier today we reported on an update to the media sharing tool from Simplify Media. It added some nice features, but it also installed a demo share on home machines that was not appreciated by many. It set off a mini-firestorm on the company blog, and we received plenty of negative comments as well.
Tonight, wasting no time, the folks at Simplify Media have pushed out another update for Macs, as well as Windows and Linux boxes. It defaults with the demo/test share turned off, but allows you to turn it on if you want to test to see if your system is working.
Paul Joyce of Simplify Media had some comments tonight on his blog:
Today I’ve been trading emails and comments with a few of you around a feature in Simplify 2.0 — the Simplify Demo. The exchange has re-enforced one thing I already knew — we have great, passionate users — and one thing I know now — I made a mistake in communicating this new capability.
Such candor is refreshing in a software company. This would be a minor issue, but the iPhone app that allowed users to have access to their large music collections from anywhere was a major hit at the App Store, and one of the most downloaded utilities, so a lot of people had a chance to be pretty angry about the installation of test content on their machine without permission.
Anyway, it’s solved now, and it’s a really positive outcome. I downloaded and tried the update, and indeed the test share is gone by default. A new version of the iPhone app will also be submitted this week. If all software developers were this responsive, it would be a better world.
Torches and pitchforks can now be stowed. A link to the new updates is on this page, about halfway down.
Simplify Media update, take 2 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Simplify Media update, take 2 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple Launches MobileMe 24/7 Live Chat Support…and No One Noticed
April 30, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
No wonder this went unnoticed by most people. In the grand history of non-newsworthy news, this is right up there.
Two days ago, Apple updated their MobileMe News page with the announcement of 24/7 Live Chat support. If you have a problem with MobileMe, and the topics on the main support pages don’t help, you can hit the “Chat now” button to start a real-time chat session with a MobileMe expert.
I can’t say for certain, but I reckon this is how most of those discussions will play out:
Customer: My Contacts have stopped syncing with my iPhone.
Support Agent: OK, I’ll try to help you with that. There’s no reported problem with the MobileMe service. I need to check your iPhone settings…
[Time passes as settings are checked and rechecked.]
Support Agent: That should correct the issue.
Customer: (Pause) Yeah, my contacts are still not syncing.
Support Agent: You just need to give it a little more time to catch up.
Customer: How much more time?
Support Agent: (Cheerful) Not long!
[24 hours later]
Customer: My Contacts have stopped syncing with my iPhone.
Support Agent: OK, I’ll try to help you with that. There’s no reported problem with the MobileMe service. I need to check your iPhone settings…
OK, all joking aside, I’ve used MobileMe since its first difficult days, and it’s far better now. Apple has continued to improve the service to the point where outages are few and far between and syncing is (usually) a smooth and hassle-free experience. You know…it just works…
…except when it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t work, in my experience at least, it’s for absolutely no good reason whatsoever. In fact, as I write this, I’m about four weeks into a period of “slow” email synchronicity; by that, I mean that my Calendar and Contacts tend to sync between my devices almost instantaneously. Email once did that, too — but not now. Now, I have to tell my iPhone’s Mail app to refresh. But, nothing has changed. This is just one of those MobileMe oddities that tends to come and go over time.
Still, adding this kind of real-live-person-at-the-end-of-a-phone support to MobileMe speaks volumes about Apple’s confidence in the service, and how seriously they’re taking it. And that’s great news for crazies like me who long ago stumped-up the green and paid for MobileMe. Of course, I can’t live without it now.
Maybe I should try calling to test the accuracy of my little imagined exchange?
Sting, Sarah McLachlan are hiding in your Garage(band)
April 29, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, iLife, Multimedia, Software, Odds and ends
Apple has added new “Learn to Play” lessons to the latest version of GarageBand, including two lessons by Sting and the first one by Sarah McLachlan. Gordon Sumner (a.k.a. Sting, so named by his friends when he wore a shirt with black and yellow stripes) will teach you how to play “Message in a Bottle” and “Fragile” (in my humble opinion, one of the lesser-known but more amazing Sting songs), and Sarah McLachlan, who really likes ice cream, will teach you how to play her “Angel.” I miss Sarah McLachlan — it’s hard to believe we had someone that was even more bland than Norah Jones.
But excuse my musical snobbery — all three lessons are now available in the GarageBand Lesson Store for the low low price of $4.99. And lest you think I am anti-McLachlan in any way, think again: I too owned a copy of Surfacing. If you wanted to hang out with girls in my high school, you pretty much had to have a copy around at any given time. That, and Crash. Ah, how young we were.
Sting, Sarah McLachlan are hiding in your Garage(band) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sting, Sarah McLachlan are hiding in your Garage(band) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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