Although the iPhone is effectively an mp3 player as well as a smartphone, the fact that even the most spacious model only has a measly 16GB of storage means that most serious music fans will have to think carefully about what to leave at home.
Do I really need to take that entire Can box set (that I will probably never listen to but still..)? Do I ditch those mid-period Eno ambient effforts in favour of the new Kylie? Decisions, decisions..
Simplify Media might be the answer. Load it up on your Mac or PC (Windows or Linux, which is nice) and you can stream your entire music collection directly to your iPhone.
The app integrates with iTunes - as you might expect - but also Winamp and Rythmbox (a top Linux iTunesalike). You can chat to other users and share you collection with up to 30 others. Doubtless there will be some kind of music industry meltdown when more people find out about this, but for now- Enjoy!
Its free, and fully street-legal with no Jailbreaking required, although you will of course need a working wifi connection to get the most out of it.
Nokia have released an official beta version of Internet Radio - this allows you to use your phone’s internet connection to stream audio from a huge list of internet based ‘radio’ stations using the popular Shoutcast protocol.
This release supports only the Nokia N95, N91 and N82 handsets, with promises of full integration into new as-yet-unreleased phones.
If you have an older phone (and don’t mind getting your hands dirty, tech-wise), you can still be able to join in some of the fun by downloading this open source Shoutcast player.
For best results, Nokia recommend accessing Internet Radio via a WLAN access point rather than GPRS.
Fed up with Vodafone and Nokia getting all the attention about their new music services like MusicStation and Music Store, 3’s launched its own unlimited music service.
3 does offer music downloads through MusicStore, but its Non Stop Music now offers 24-hour music streaming to your handset for a mere 49p a day. Unlike the above services, this is more of a mobile radio service but one that offers a dip-in-and-out user experience.
There are eight genre-based music streams (or ‘stations’) and each plays tracks on a four-hour loop. You can switch between stations at any time and new music will be updated every week.
It sounds like a neat idea but with only four-hour loops it could get a little repetitive very quickly if you listen to it a lot.
