Version 1.1.3 of Simplify Media for the iPhone and iPod Touch is now available through the Apple App Store. The biggest improvement is a feature many of you have requested: the application willreconnect whenever it detects a network change (for example, a switch from WiFi to 3G). We’ve also added troubleshooting tips for common problems and fixes for a few more connection bugs.

Two weeks ago, when 1.1.2 was released for the iPhone, we mentioned that a desktop update was common soon. We now expect to have it mid-next week, but while we test the last few changes we added build 1077 to the download page. If you have build 1055 or earlier and have experienced any instability, we recommend 1077. Also, if you have had a problem connecting two computers or devices on the same network, 1077 should fix that. When we offer the update to build 108x next week we will add more complete release notes.

Version 1.1.2 of Simplify Media for the iPhone and iPod Touch has just been released through the Apple App Store. Changes in this version include a fix for the scrolling problem with artist bios and lyrics, display of cover art if it is embedded in the remote song and improved connectivity over WiFi and cell networks.

In addition, there is one half of the solution for a rare problem where the mobile version is unable to connect to the desktop version while on the same local network. The other half (the desktop side) will be available in an update for Mac, PC and Linux next week.

Next week’s desktop update will also fix a stability problem on Mac. However, if you are experiencing either crashes or high CPU use on the Mac with the current build (1055), there is an unofficial update available now. It has been well-tested, but it has some UI elements that are still a work in progress. To install:

1) delete the current Simplify Media application from /Applications (or your install location)

2) download and install the test version (Mac only)

Like any update, this will require a rescan of your libraries, so CPU usage will be high during that process. However, after all your files have been indexed, the CPU usage should go way down. Sorry about the original problem.

We’ve released build 1055 as an optional update for all desktop users, and we have just received word from Apple that Simplify version 1.1.1 (iPhone build 1053) will be in the App Store later tonight.

For the PC, Mac and Linux, changes include fixes for several errors that can lead to excessive memory usage or a rescan of your local library. We have also added more tests to the Troubleshooting tool. For the iPhone and iPod Touch, there is now an indication to let know when a library is still loading and is not yet synced. In addition, there are better warnings when a network change has been detected or a connection is unavailable.

We are working hard on solutions for a few more problems you have reported, and we hope to have another update available in about 2 weeks. Thank you again for all of the help and support.

Note: installing any update, including build 1055 for the desktop and 1053 for the iPhone, will require a one-time rebuild of your song lists.

In fact, we’ve received quite a few emails from you with questions in the last 9 days. We’ve made it a priority to try to reply to each one, but just in case we didn’t address yours, we wanted to let you know where you can get more answers.

Our support page has a general FAQ that covers things like does my computer have to be on (yes) and can I use this without an iPhone (yes). We also have a new Troubleshooting page with tips on resolving common problems.

Our most asked new question, by far, goes something like this: I have a very large library but I don’t see all of my music through Simplify Media. Where are my missing songs? Troubleshooting has clues to find them but, most often, the answer is to wait a bit longer while the initial scan completes. Then, on your iPhone or iPod Touch, let the Simplify app run longer while your lists are synced. You can play remote music while this happens, but Simplify on the iPhone cannot operate in the background. So, it’s only working while you see it running.

Next in frequency are suggestions for making the product better. These include providing better scan feedback, improving sort order, running on a network attached storage device, scrobbling to last.fm, handling cover art differently and more. We want you to know how much we appreciate feedback, and we use your requests to help prioritize what we build next. For the record, video is your top ask.

Another class of email surrounded the inability of the computer version to connect. There are a few variations of this - error code 0, 1, 10 or stuck at “initializing”, “connecting” or “scanning” messages. However, the root cause is the same. Something is preventing Simplify Media from connecting.

You might be behind a proxy server, or your firewall might have a very restrictive policy that blocks us and applications like Skype. More often, though, it is other software on your desktop. Some security apps can block us without warning users, including Kaspersky Anti-Virus, ESET NOD32 and Smart Security, AVG, and Zone Alarm (high setting). If you have problems connecting, check your security programs to make sure both SimplifyMedia and SimplifyPeer are allowed. Troubleshooting has more details. Finally, if you have multiple active network connections (like with an active VPN), we may have trouble routing traffic.

We’ve also received reports about buffering on the iPhone. I’m sure there are problems we still need to track down, but if you get stuck on a buffering or connecting message, first make sure the computer you are trying to play from is still available and restart Simplify Media on your phone. In fact, whenever you switch between networks (WiFi or 3G/EDGE) on your iPhone or Touch you will have to restart the application.

Finally, we had some initial sever problems, and we believe those are behind us. There were also reports of errors scanning songs and failures at the license agreement stage, and we released new builds this morning that solve those. (download here)

If you find something new, you can send us a Report Issue (from the Troubleshooting tool) and include a detailed description of what you are seeing. Thanks!

We launched the first version of Simplify Media last summer. For the past year, we’ve experienced smooth growth, but all of that changed dramatically less than 4 days ago when our application debuted in the Apple App Store. Our (aggressive) target was to have 100,000 downloads in 30 days. Instead we reached that goal in about 30 hours. As of last night, we had 205,909 downloads.

Your generous reaction to Simplify Media has exceeded our wildest projections. Blogs like: Gizmodo, Lifehacker, TUAW, CrunchGear and Download Blog and forums / news sites like: modmyifone, MacRumors, AppleInsider, MacBidouille and digg are filled with encouraging comments. However, there have also been people who ran into trouble.

The overwhelming response has caused us to experience some growing pains:

Infrastructure: We discovered two problems with our servers (one Friday and another last night) that forced us to scramble. That meant many of you couldn’t connect for a period of time.

Product: We learned that two of our features, album art on the iPhone and password reset, weren’t scalable, so we disabled these. If you have forgotten your password, email us from the address associated with your screen name.

Support systems: We found out that our email provider enforces a hard limit on the number of email we can send per day.

Now we face a dilemma. According to the “free for the first 100,000″ plan we announced, we should be charging for new downloads. However, we are not confident that we can deliver a user experience that meets our expectations (and yours) until we work out a few more kinks. As a result, we’ve decided to remain free for a while longer as we make improvements. In return, we ask for your continued patience as we work through the growing pains.

A final note: to stay ahead of the curve, we are schedule a maintenance window on 8/19 from 9:00 -9:30a Pacific, that’s tomorrow.

Wow! Simplify Media is now in the Top 5 list of free applications in the App Store, and we’ve had more people download our software and create an account in the past day than have so in any month in the company’s history. We’re overwhelmed by your interest in accessing all of your music wherever you are and all of the support you’ve shown for our product.

Unfortunately, we developed a server-related problem overnight. After you log in with our account server, your computer contacts one of our connection servers to rendezvous with the other computers on your Media List. Overnight, the connection servers have been slower than normal to return responses, especially for new computers coming online, and, as a result, many of you have been experiencing delays. Typically these will manifest as errors suggesting that the software is still scanning or still connecting. We are working hard to correct this, and we expect the situation to stabilize over the next few hours. I’ll keep updating this post until this issue is behind us.

1:16p update: It looks like things have been stable for the past 90 minutes. We have futher improvements planned and we will continue to watch this closely. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

5/17 8:48p: After a great weekend and lots more growth, we’ve had to do some unplanned maintenance on our account server. As a result, it is not possible to create a new account or log in if you weren’t already connected. We hope to have it complete in an hour. I’ll update status here.

5/17 9:49p: And we’re back. Sorry for those who experience login trouble, and apologies for our growing pains. We’ll have more to say on this tomorrow.

View video demo from your iPhone

In December, we released the first version of Simplify Media mobile. Today, we are pleased to announce that Simplify Media is available for for the iPhone and iPod Touch through the Apple App Store. The app is live in Europe and it should be in all stores within the next few hours.

Key features

	Access all of your home music and playlists Install our small application on your home computer and connect to your entire collection over WiFi, EDGE and 3G with Simplify Media for the iPhone.
	Browse by artist, album, song or genre Speed through long lists with A-Z jump navigation — or Shuffle any selection.
	Enjoy music from up to 30 friends On the desktop, friends’ music appears in iTunes, Winamp or Rhythmbox. On the iPhone, their libraries are accessible whenever their computers are online
	View cover art during playback and stop worrying about music format. Simplify Media supports MP3, AAC, WMA and Apple Lossless files and Mac, PC and Linux computers.
	Review artist bios from last.fm You can also go back and browse without interrupting the music and, unlike web solutions, when one song ends the next one start automatically.
	Sing along with lyrics from lyrics wiki Simplify Media is safe, secure and easy to install.

Pricing

To thank everyone who has supported us over the past year, the App Store application is free for the first 100,000 people who download it. After the first 100,000, the price for new iPhone and iPod Touch users will be $3.99. However, the current desktop versions for Mac, PC and Linux will remain free for everyone.

More information

Main Simplify Media iPhone page
Step-by-step iPhone screenshots
Instructions for Mac, PC and Linux

As always, if you have any questions or problems, please contact us at support@simplifymedia.com.

Sometime in the next 24 hours Simplify Media will be available for download for the iPhone and iPod Touch from the Apple App Store. When that happens, we will update the website, our blog and all who have asked for notification. However, I wanted to thank the 100 people who helped us to beta test the official version for their detailed input. Here are some of the nice things you sent us in email:

Mike: Let me be the first to say congrats..
Peter: Seems to work perfect. Great with the artist info and lyrics… … This is really a fantastic app!!
Nicholas: Installation was smooth, sync was smooth, playback was smooth
Joe: All of the web based solutions are less than ideal since you can only play 1 song at a time. Simplify changes all of that!!
Tres: I continue to be surprised at the performance over my slow EDGE network and everything is working as expected.
David: I love that I can now search by artist and then album, that is a huge addition.
Stephen: I’ve been testing the Beta and it really works well.
Sage: After a few days playing with the app I can tell you that your app is by far better than anything out there working on edge network.
Scott: This app should be part of the core iPhone software
Leonel: Excellent works great.
Carlos: Thank you again for such great application!
Trey: can’t wait for it to get on the app store!!!!!!
James: Possibly the Daddy of all Apps.
Ole: When you see this popping up in the App Store - get it! And if you don’t have an iPhone yet, this is a very good reason to get one.

The application isn’t perfect yet, and there are two items many of you mentioned we plan to address soon. First is album art and lyrics truncation - sometimes they don’t load completely and we are not yet sure why. Second, we don’t let you know when libraries are still syncing. Some files are available for playback but we should tell you that more are on the way.

As our testers discovered, the best thing to do is to let Simplify Media build its index for a while after your initial install. After that, most information is cached for fast startup.

Finally, you offered many suggestions for future features, including search, last.fm scrobbling, iPhone chat and invites, improved UI, and video. We’re going to be busy the rest of the summer and fall.

It seems that last week’s desktop upgrade and the switch to our new account server cluster has gone smoothly. However, there are two issues that I wanted to make sure that you were aware of.

1) some Mac users on OS X 10.5.3 have reported connectivity problems. We aren’t sure what is causing it, but we can confirm that an OS update to 10.5.4 solves the problem.

2) the mail module for our new account server has taken a few naps yesterday and today. If you experience any difficulty requesting a new password, drop us an email and we will get you going again.

Finally, we are on track for the iPhone release at the end of this week. More details tomorrow.

We are removing the “beta” label from Simplify Media and transitioning to 1.0. Thanks are in order to the more than 100,000 people on Mac, PC, Linux and iPhone who have helped us test and improve Simplify Media. We are fortunate to have so many supportive users and we remain grateful for all of your encouragement.

Simplify Media will continue to be free for Windows, Mac and Linux. In addition to bug fixes, here are some enhancements associated with build 1043:

Support for Ubuntu 8.04. 1043 will run on other distributions in server-only mode but, for the full experience on Rhythmbox, Hardy Heron is now required.

More scalable infrastructure. We had been using Openfire as our account management and messaging server, and for better performance and clustering and we are switching to ejabberd.

Simpler installation. We’ve created a Troubleshooting application that runs basic diagnostic tests and recommends solutions.

Better support for iPhone. Apple has approved our iPhone app, and we will be making it available in about a week in the App Store. To show our appreciation to all of our early users, the App Store version will be free for the first 100,000 people to download it. For people who download it after that, the cost will be $3.99. (The desktop version will remain free for everyone.) In our next blog post we’ll talk about some of the features of the App Store version.

Because of the change in our XMPP server to provide improved scalability, build 1043 will be a required update for all desktop users and it will be available this evening. One note: from 5:30 until 6p (Pacific) it will not be possible to create a new account or invite others as we will be migrating account servers. We apologize for any inconvenience.