How to: stream your photos to your iPhone, iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS

Simplify Media made the app that lets you create your own Spotify killer. Now it's made it easy to access your photo library on the go. Don't waste space on your iPhone 3GS that you could fill with music and apps with photos, grab them remotely instead.

Step 1: download the Simplify Media desktop app

Visit the Simplify Media site and download the free desktop app. It's a relatively small download and is available for Windows (XP or Vista with iTunes, Winamp or WMP), Mac OS X (10.4 or 10.5 with iTunes 8 or iPhoto 8) and Ubuntu (8.10 or 9.04)

Step 2: install the desktop app and share your photo library

Once you've installed the desktop application, all you need to do is open it and register for an account. This takes a few seconds and just requires a username and password. After that, Simplify Media will give you the opportunity to share you music and photos. Share your photos and jump to step 3.

Step 3: buy the Simplify Photo app from the iTunes App Store

This is the only part of this how to that will cost you anything. The Simplify Photo app [iTunes link] costs £0.59 and is what allows you to get at the photos on your home computer while you're on the go.

Step 4: enter your account details to set up the app

With the Simplify Media desktop application running on your home computer, open the app on your iPhone and enter your account details. As long as you have EDGE, 3G or WiFi signal, it will then give you access to your shared photos.

Step 5: browse your photos

We tested the Simplify Photo app with OS X and iPhoto. It allows you to browse your photos in a similar way to flicking through them on your Mac. Here's a rundown of the ways you can do that:

Timeline

Your photos organised by when you took them. Not particularly descriptive in Simplify Photo's menu but a good way of getting at lots of snaps from a particular period.

Albums

Flick through your pictures according to the albums set up on in your iPhoto folders. I've only go one – the pictures for a book I'm working on – so the menu is quite sparse for me. If you've set up lots of albums though, this will be the best way to get at them.

Events

iPhoto splits your photos up into events according to when you took them or groups you've put them in. Simplify Photo will allow you to access them. Here I'm taking a look at my photos from Glastonbury 2009.

Faces

Tag people in your iPhoto and those photos plus ones iPhoto thinks feature them are grouped together. Simplify Photo lets you browse your pictures that way too. This is my friend John in three unflattering pictures.

Places

The best crossover between Simplify Photo and its host iPhoto is places with a map view allowing you to browse your photos according to geotag data. I've again chosen to check out this years Glastonbury pictures.

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