Simplify Photo for iPhone: Remote photo-viewing

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

When you want to listen to music from your computer or your friends' collections on your iPhone, Simplify Music is one solution. On Wednesday, Simplify Media introduced a similar iPhone application called Simplify Photo that provides the same service for pictures rather than songs.

After logging in, Simplify Photo for iPhone ($0.99) talks to the Simplify Media application on your desktop (download for Windows | Mac | Ubuntu). So long as you have the newest version installed (2.5), and the photo-sharing element selected (configure in the Options menu), you'll be able to view the photos in your network. Networked images can include pictures from your multiple computers, and those that friends on your Simplify network have given permission to see.

The initial syncing will take a few minutes. After that, you'll see a list of shared computers. Tap to see options and tap again to view photos by time line, places (geotagged images show on a Google map), folders, events, albums, and faces, when available. You can also search for a specific photo in a search field.

Simplify Photo's media is view-only for now; though ideally the app would also add your iPhone photos to the network. You can swipe through images in the viewer or can play a slide show. As a perk, you can also save the picture locally to the iPhone. Unfortunately, and unlike the desktop viewer, Simplify Photo doesn't yet rotate images by 90 degrees. The interface could also use some prettying up.

However, Simplify Photo is functional for existing Simplify Media users looking to view friends' pictures, or their own, remotely.