simplify on iPhone is cool, but not practical for the car

by Justin Horn on Aug 18th, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

I remember about 8 years ago I wanted to have the ability to stream my music from my home computer to my car and this past weekend I was finally able to achieve this goal thanks to the new app by simplify (direct app link). The app is free for the first 100,000 downloads (still free as I’m writing this) and then goes up to $3.99.You will also need to download and install the PC or Mac program to setup the “host” side of the connection. Simplify lets you share your music with up to 30 friends and works from computer to computer as well as the iPhone. Setting up the computer side of the program wasn’t difficult, but could have gone smoother.  I had to re-detect my library a couple times, but once I finally got it working it works just as it says it should.

So why do I say it’s impractical for the car? Well the big reason for me was battery life. I started with a fully charged battery which was plugged into a car charger and within about 25 minutes I was at or just below 50% charge. I was using 3g so I decided to try EDGE to see how it did with battery life.  This test didn’t work out as it played for about a minute and then kept going to buffering. Also, when it was playing on EDGE the sound quality was noticeably less than 3g.

The other “issues” I had weren’t really issues, but just a limitation of 3rd party apps. For example if you get a phone call the app is closed out. Compare this to the native iPod app which will fade the music out, let you pick up the call and then automatically start playing again when you hang up. If you are in your car it’s also pretty reasonable to consider that you would want to listen to music and check the GPS simultanesouly, which obviously can’t be done with any 3rd party app. I think if apple releases an update for the native iPod app to allow a remote streaming (which has been rumored already) this could fix at least this one issue.

I would like to finish this post by making it clear that I think this is a great app and well worth the $3.99 (if you aren’t quick enough to get it for free). If you are on wifi and plugged into an outlet it gets much more practical. This is also a great backup for the native iPod app if you really just want to hear that one song that you didn’t have synced to your iPhone.

If anyone else has tried this app while driving please post your comments here on your personal experiences.  Maybe depending on your signal strength and other factors the battery life could change signifigantly enough to make it more practical?

Follow me on Twitter @justin_horn

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