If you are familiar with Apple’s iPod you will
WHAT’S HOT
feel right at home with Visual IT’s Simple Tunes. Its features
and ease of use are quite similar.
Simple Tunes installed without a hitch.
SETUP
Just launch the setup application, accept the license agreement, and
wait for Simple Tunes to install on your Pocket PC. Pretty simple!
Simple Tunes was developed to make the MP3
PROGRAM FEATURES
listening experience on a Pocket PC simple. Some of Simple
Tunes features, taken directly from their website, include:
Simple to use MP3 player.
Support of MP3 tags,
displaying artist, album, and track info.
Plays MP3’s in
the background while you get on with other tasks.
Can turn off display
saving valuable battery life.
Intuitive user interface,
completely controllable with your finger.
Hardware key support,
allowing you to control Simple Tunes with one hand.
Shuffle and repeat options.
Seek option allowing
to quickly seek to any position in a song.
Volume control
This is how the program
looks when it is first launched.
In "Settings"
you will find that there is a "Skins" option.
You can choose between
plastic or classic. I prefer the polished look of the classic
skin on the right.
Now back
to the main screen. From here you can do many things. Selecting
"Explore" will provide you with a simple file browser so you
can search for music on your Pocket PC from within the Simple Tunes
application.
The next
time you launch Simple Tunes, provided that you have selected a music
folder, you can choose "Last Played." By selecting "Last
Played" you will open the folder where the music you were last
playing is stored.
Now once
the music has been taken care of you can then use the main screen to
access some of the other great features in this program. If you
would like to conserve your Pocket PC’s battery while listening to MP3′s
with Simple Tunes you can select "Display Off" and your screen
will shut off. This is good if you are solely using your Pocket
PC to play music.
On the
other hand if you prefer to be productive while listening to your MP3′s
you can select "Hide." Selecting "Hide" will
take you to your Pocket PC’s today screen where you can launch a program
like you normally would when starting your Pocket PC.
The "Explore"
feature is nice because you can navigate to the folder where your music
is stored. There is even support for storage cards.
The play
screen looks great and provides the user with a lot of information.
It displays the necessary MP3 information like song , artist, and album
name. The bar in the middle of the screen is a time bar that represents
the song. The black part signifies how much of the song has been
played. The unfilled part of the bar shows how much of the song
is remaining. If you like to be more exact, take a look below
the time bar. If you look at the bottom left of the display will
notice that the track’s time position is displayed. On the bottom
right of the display you will notice that the time remaining in the
track is displayed. If you move your attention to the bottom center
of the play screen you will see a track display. The "7/21"
means that the seventh song of twenty-one songs is playing.
You can
access the seek feature by pressing the button in the middle of the
scroll wheel while a song is playing. You will notice that where
the track display was is now a multidirectional arrow, and the black
inside the time bar changes to blue. Now to navigate to a certain
position within the song all you have to do is use the scroll wheel.
The volume
can be accessed just as easily by tapping on the scroll wheel.
The time bar will change from black to blue and the universal volume
symbol will appear below. Volume adjustment is as easy as using
the scroll wheel.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find any
HELP SUPPORT
help support for Simple Tunes. Fortunately, the interface is pretty
intuitive and after a few minutes of getting to know Simple Tunes I
am sure you will have mastered it.
Simple
OPTIONS
Tunes also has the ability to shuffle your tracks around and repeat
songs.
The
shuffle and repeat options are available by choosing "Settings"
from the main screen.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
or Xscale processor. It only uses 400 k of memory.
The Pocket PC is a very powerful device
BUGS AND WISHES
and it would be beneficial to take advantage of all its strengths.
Therefore, in future releases of Simple Tunes the user should have the
ability to use their stylus to select items from the display screen.
I also think that the process of searching for MP3′s should be automated,
and for the sake of simplicity, future releases should automatically
search the Pocket PC for MP3′s so one is not limited to putting all
their music into one folder.
It would also be nice
to see future releases have the ability to stream music from a desktop
to Simple Tunes. This would help those that don’t want to dedicate
a majority of their storage card to music.
Lastly, more skin
options would be greatly appreciated or maybe a way for the user to
select different colors for buttons, backgrounds, and the scroll wheel.
Simple Tunes can be purchased directly from
PURCHASING
Visual
IT or from Handango
for $19.00. If your not sure if Simple Tunes is for you give it
a try before you buy. You can download a three day trial
from the Visual
IT website.
PROS
Nice graphical user interface
Access of the last music folder
played with the Last Played feature
You can play music in the
background while working with other programs
Display off feature saves
battery power
CONS
Can’t use a stylus to select
items from the display screen
No help/support
Does not automatically search
Pocket PC for MP3s
Simple Tunes is a nice application. Personally,
OVERALL IMPRESSION
I think the price is a bit expensive, but if the few suggestions I mentioned
were added to the program, I think Simple Tunes would be well worth
the $19.00 price tag. I look forward to seeing future releases
of Simple Tunes.
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