Simfy music streaming hands-on review (MyBroadband)

JStrike said:
Lost me at Adobe Air
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Completely forgot to mention that my media keys don't work with the Air app.

What *is* nice about Air is that you have the same app on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
 
Jan said:
Completely forgot to mention that my media keys don't work with the Air app.

What *is* nice about Air is that you have the same app on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
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That is in no way a "nice" thing!! :) What you have a jack of all trades, master of none. It's UX language is not native on any platform.
It is the same problem apps that used to be written in Java Swing suffered from.

And this is coming from someone that has been involved with Adobe Air. It's a half assed solution designed to prioritize expedience over user experience. The myth of write once, run everywhere needs to die. The reality is write once, run badly everywhere

EDIT : I liked the review though. Nicely written
 
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now this is what I had always talked about, once you reduce communication costs, added value products are going to spawn and the small business as a results benefits as well as the whole economy. Any one seeing a certain company with 'wooosh' benefiting here?
 
ok, so not to invoke a debate about piracy, but what are the T&C's when it comes to the downloaded files? Can I listen to them indefinitely? May i burn them to MP3 disks or use them in a DJ set?
 
danny0507 said:
ok, so not to invoke a debate about piracy, but what are the T&C's when it comes to the downloaded files? Can I listen to them indefinitely? May i burn them to MP3 disks or use them in a DJ set?
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I've only delved into what the Air app does, and it stores the songs in an encrypted blob in a standard location (this can be irritating if you don't have a lot of free space to burn on your primary drive).

To be honest, I haven't tried to decrypt the blob to see if you could access the files, but from the fact that it's encrypted I would assume that you're not supposed to be able to burn them to a disc or play them in anything other than Simfy.

As I understand it, their business model is to pay artists per play. To keep track of plays the songs have to be played in their software.
 
JStrike said:
That is in no way a "nice" thing!! :) What you have a jack of all trades, master of none. It's UX language is not native on any platform.

It is the same problem apps that used to be written in Java Swing suffered from.

And this is coming from someone that has been involved with Adobe Air. It's a half assed solution designed to prioritize expedience over user experience. The myth of write once, run everywhere needs to die. The reality is write once, run badly everywhere

EDIT : I liked the review though. Nicely written
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Thanks :-)

As someone who's written Swing code, I agree until the changes in Java 6. From there my irritation is less with Swing and more with Java in general :P Which I can't harbour too much hate for as an Android user...

But yes, Air is sucky from a user perspective. From a developer perspective I see the attraction in not having to maintain three (or more) different codebases for the different native UIs you want to target.
 
Jan said:
I've only delved into what the Air app does, and it stores the songs in an encrypted blob in a standard location (this can be irritating if you don't have a lot of free space to burn on your primary drive).

To be honest, I haven't tried to decrypt the blob to see if you could access the files, but from the fact that it's encrypted I would assume that you're not supposed to be able to burn them to a disc or play them in anything other than Simfy.

As I understand it, their business model is to pay artists per play. To keep track of plays the songs have to be played in their software.
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Makes sense...
So it might be a cool way to demo music before purchasing, but now i'm concerned if they will be up to date with the latest stuff.

I used to digg through old stuffy crates, now i rely on beatport.com and traxsource.com
 
@Jan, what do you think about the fact that the GERMAN user base has a FREE option to stream with ads and we have to PAY just to use it? I for one am happy about what they trying to achieve (lots of music) but take away what your original model was to a new userbase and BAM you can be labelled as something else.

I just wish they would give us this option, +1 if you wouldn't mind listening to the music with ADS placed inbetween and if you wanted the premium version to remove the ads then you would be happy to pay.

Notice how trying to access the original site always redirects to the SA site unless you try to get technical :p...
 
Now if only we had similar international streaming TV shows and Movies... without Monochoice throwing their toys of of the cot again.
 
Spent some time last night messing around with this stuff...

There are areas that it could be massively improved, but just its song selection is pretty damn impressive, they have some pretty decent South African stuff in the collection (Nudies etc)

I will play during the course of the weekend with all 3 apps (tablet, phone, and PC).. but as it stands right now, there is a very good chance I will subscribe to this service.
 
I am on the free trial and quite like it. I am not sure if I like it for R60.00 pm but I am sure that there are people who will use it much more than me.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Spent some time last night messing around with this stuff...

There are areas that it could be massively improved, but just its song selection is pretty damn impressive, they have some pretty decent South African stuff in the collection (Nudies etc)

I will play during the course of the weekend with all 3 apps (tablet, phone, and PC).. but as it stands right now, there is a very good chance I will subscribe to this service.
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Yep, I'm in as well, the Offline Option is brilliant, you will use a bit of data in the beginning, but after you get your base library offline, adding a few songs here and there will be minor, very minor.

Cool service, serias.
 
bokka1 said:
I am on the free trial and quite like it. I am not sure if I like it for R60.00 pm but I am sure that there are people who will use it much more than me.
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If you are worried about a R60 per month music service you obviously have some seriously bigger financial problems in your life, sort it out.
 
Who is using this? I am interested in trying it out, not too sure how the mobile billing works, do they deduct your airtime?
 
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