We all know that the iPhone is an amazing tool, but what would make it even better?

Have you ever been talking to someone about a song and had to tell them, while searching through your iPod, “No I don’t have it on me, but its in my iTunes at home?”

We’ve all been there but what if you having that particular song, at that particular moment, is the key to gaining that special someone’s attention? Who knows? It worked for Natalie Portman in Garden State…

You say, “How am I supposed to do that, Jared? I can’t carry my whole music library with me.”

I say, “Bullshit. You ever heard of Simplify Media?”

You reply with, “huh?”

Simplify Media is a must have app for the iPhone. Not only do you get to carry your whole music library wherever you go, you get to carry yours and 30 of your friends as well.

I know you’re wondering how this is possible, and I’m gonna tell you.

There are a couple of things that you have to do before you can listen to your music. First, you have to download the Simplify Media program from their website. After you’ve done that, you have to set up an account with them and choose how you want to share your music. I chose to share my iTunes information.

The cool thing about sharing your iTunes information, with Simplify Media, is that when you add your friends you have access to all their music in your iTunes and on your iPhone.

This is what the PC version of the Simplify Media software looks like.

Notice that I have access to 16,888 songs. That’s about 40 days of music. Imagine what it would be if you had 30 friends…

After you’ve got everything installed on your computer, its time to download the iPhone app. When you download it from the app store, it will show up on your iPhone desktop.

Notice that the color of the Simplify Media icon is the same color as the iPod icon. This shows that they go hand in hand: just like with the text and phone icons, they are both green.

Run the app and log in using the name and password you created in the Simplify Media software.

Change any of these settings, if they apply to you. I just left them the same.

When you click done, at the top of the settings page, you will connect to all of your media libraries.

It will take a few moments for all of your media to update. When that’s done, select which library you’d like to listen to.

Notice that the familiar iPod format is used here. Its just like having all of your music on your iPod. When you select an artist and an album, you can use it just like your iPod: play a song or shuffle an album or the whole library.

You should feel completely comfortable with Simplify Media’s interface, until you get to the media player.

From what I can tell, the media player streams one song at a time but gets the next song in the queue ready for play. For example: if you are shuffeling your entire library and you listen to a whole song, the next song will start almost instantly. This is also true when you skip songs: the next song in the queue will play very quickly but if you skip that song, it will take a moment to load the next. The lag isnt bad at all, especially when you are on a wifi connection.

This is what the media player looks like.

The media player is set up pretty much the same as the iPod, so you shouldn’t have any problems with it. If your mp3s have the album art built into them, it will show up. One of the really cool features of the media player is the artist and lyrics buttons, at the top right of the screen. If you click on the artist button, it will give you a small bio on the artist.

The same goes for the lyrics button: you get the lyrics.

Simplify Media is a great tool that connects you with your music.

The iPhone app goes for $3.99 and the software, for your computer, is free. Its a must have app, if you want to enjoy all of your music. Even if you don’t get the iPhone app, at least download the software and connect all of your computers with the same music. Trust me. Its worth it.

Side note: I really wish they would upgrade the software and make it where you can stream your videos. If it could do that, it would be the best app in the world. Maybe it will be in an update sometime in the near future. I hope so!