Access Music through your iPhone from Anywhere with Simplify Media

If your home computer runs 24/7, there’s a strong chance that you use it to access the music stored on your hard drive when you’re at work, on vacation, etc. Even if you haven’t gotten around to it yet, you might be looking for something that gives you this functionality.

One program that has caught my attention in this sphere is SimplifyMedia. This is a new program which looks quite promising. How does it work? Once you download and install the application, it allows you to share your music libraries on iTunes and Winamp. You can set-up your account and share it with up to 30 friends. Of course, your work address will be one of those friends. However, since you can choose the others, you have access to a wide range of music.

The program also lets you access your library through your iPhone or iPod Touch. Just download the SimplifyMedia app for the iPhone and install it. A word of caution: your iPhone needs to jailbroken before installing the app. Then, you can use a local wi-fi connection to access your music. The iPhone integration is definitely this program’s biggest asset.

There are a few caveats. One, your host computer needs to be online or you cannot access your music. Secondly, you need to have both SimplifyMedia and iTunes running on the host machine. Thirdly, both host and target machines need a reasonably fast internet connection or the playback will be choppy, which is not pleasant for the listener. Lastly, it works only on Windows and Mac, so Linux users are left in the lurch.

The program is still in beta phase so it will definitely get better with time. I’d like to see them add support for more audio player libraries since not everyone uses iTunes or Winamp. What do you think of SimplifyMedia? Are there any features you’d like to see added? Which programs do you use to stream music over the internet?