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Simplify Media no more

A

azcoyote

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 10, 2009
106
18
This blows.. Simplify Media just announced they're pulling the plug on their current software, including the iPhone app. They're removing the iPhone apps from the App Store and disabling new account creation. If you already have Simplify, it'll work for at least the next 3 months. Who knows what'll happen after the 3 months are up. They're going in a "new direction". Unbelievable. Simplify Music 2.0 has been by far my favorite iPhone app. I use it everyday at work and in the car to stream music from home. I won't be a happy camper if the Simplify service stops working altogether in 3 months. I could always go back to using Orb, but Simplify is much better for streaming music. I'm still hoping Apple will someday soon give us the ability to stream music from our home iTunes libraries to iPhone/iPad over 3G & WiFi.

http://www.simplifymedia.com/blog/

Important Annoucement
After developing the technology behind Simplify Media for over 4 years, it is time for us to take it in a new direction. In order to focus on this transition, we will no longer be offering the current software to new users. Today we are removing the Simplify iPhone applications from the App Store, and new account creation will be disabled shortly after that. However, existing Simplify accounts and clients will continue to work fine.

We are unable to share our future plans at this time but hope to be able to announce the re-launch of the technology soon. In the meantime, we will continue to operate the existing service for at least the next 3 months. Many thanks to those of you who have supported us and helped us improve Simplify over the last few years! We hope you will enjoy its future incarnations as well.

What will change about my account?
Existing account holders can continue to use the service and software to access their own music and photos.

Will my account be going away in the future?
We will be announcing future plans at a later date, but we will continue to operate the service for at least the next 3 months.

Will you continue to offer any kind of tech support?
Our support plan is under review, but no change is being made at this time, so email support and web support documentation are still available.
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O

opticalserenity

macrumors 6502a
Apr 14, 2007
596
0
Dang, that sucks. I didn't use it but it's crummy when things like this happen. I'm not sure I'd trust this company any longer.
 
A

azcoyote

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 10, 2009
106
18
I suspect this is Simplify Media's way of forcing users to upgrade their client iPhone apps once again and cough up even more $$. I've already paid for the original Simplify iPhone app. Then later purchased the Music 2.0 and Photo apps. I use Simplify more than any other app on my iPhone, so I didn't mind paying a few bucks to upgrade. I was hoping Simplify would continue to add features to the existing apps. The reason I went to their website yesterday was to see if they had plans on releasing an optimized version of the Music 2.0 app for the iPad to allow viewing album art at full resolution and seeing more artists/albums/songs on the screen when scrolling. Instead I find out they're phasing out the current apps and re-launching as a brand new product later this year, once again forcing upgrades. I'll probably end up purchasing the new and improved Simplify app after the re-launch if it works well with the iPad and there's no better alternative. I do have Orb, but I don't use it for music. Simplify's app has more features for streaming music and more polished.
 
M

Mac In School

macrumors 65816
Jun 21, 2007
1,286
0
I'm not heartbroken over this. On average it took 5+ minutes to load my library every time I opened the app. Fun for a while... Painful beyond that.
 
L

LostLogik

macrumors 6502a
Jul 9, 2008
701
4
Mac In School said:
I'm not heartbroken over this. On average it took 5+ minutes to load my library every time I opened the app. Fun for a while... Painful beyond that.
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only 5 mins? You were lucky. I ditched it long ago because of the time it took to load mine or any other library (of worthful size). Nope, not sorry to see it go.
 
W

wooo

macrumors member
Mar 23, 2006
83
0
LostLogik said:
only 5 mins? You were lucky. I ditched it long ago because of the time it took to load mine or any other library (of worthful size). Nope, not sorry to see it go.
Click to expand...

FYI, the poor performance of Simplify on my mac is part of what drove me to write the ooTunes server/app combo. I found that simplify was using 25% of my CPU always (when it should have been idling) and that it was taking hours to rescan my 60k track library. ooTunes is certainly not perfect in all respects, but it parses my 60k library in under 2 seconds (which is good since I have it set to update the playcount, play date, and ratings in realtime, so those changes are almost instantaneous). The app loads a large playlist or even the full "music" library in under 10 seconds on 3G, so if speed was your primary bone to pick with Simplify, you may want to check out ooTunes.
 
G

guinness0514

macrumors newbie
Mar 16, 2010
9
0
LaLa

I got a feeling this has to be more due to the acquisition of lala. lala's big thing was streaming music. If Apple has there "S^*^" together, which I am sure they do, Simplify prob getting out of dodge...
 
D

djrobsd

macrumors 6502a
May 2, 2008
824
25
Ahh the irony... It's been over a year since the acquisition, and we finally see the fruits of all this... Google Music is NOTHING like Simplify, you have to upload all your music to their "cloud" rather then streaming it from your home. Why Google went in that direction is beyond me, I guess since Apple and Amazon are, they don't want to miss out on the party.

Anyway, at least there are other options now, including Subsonic... ;)
 
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