SoundCtrl – A Music Sharing Party in Your Pocket: MyStream App

By Lisa Bernier

In the spirit of connectivity that has been the tagline of the 21^st century comes MyStream, a free music-sharing app from ADEV Inc. Only downloadable via iPhone (already a minus) with a 4.2 iOS or higher, the app is free for now, though later on it will cost $2.99. It’s a dubious plus that ADEV Inc. is courteous enough to warn you about their upcoming bait and switch.

With an explanatory YouTube video, a snazzy website, and a decent looking interface, MyStream looks like the new cool app of the month. However, it doesn’t offer much more than say, Spotify already does. It shares music files and playlists.

Granted, the Spotify app is limited (you can’t access shared playlists via the app, unlike the site) so MyStream has a bit of an advantage. With the ability to share and listen to full songs from your playlists, it is much more connected as an app. However, your Favorites playlist is limited to 10 songs, which is annoying.

Though you do have unlimited “previews” of songs from the MyStream playlist library, that maneuver seems like a thinly veiled marketing strategy for iTunes. MyStream also has commercials that pop up via streaming. That’s annoying enough on the web, it is doubly annoying on your phone.

The interface at least is fairly simple. The main page allows you to enable your streaming and/or your store playlists. You can also navigate between your streams, other “streamers” a.k.a your friends, your playlist and your profile fairly easily.

Once you access your playlist, it gives you the full list of songs and also indicates who else is listening.

To see who else is on MyStream, go to Streamers and you can see who is listening and what they are listening to. The Streamer page also allows you to view your Favorites and your History. If you connect to a song via Stream, you are also able to Tweet, share through Facebook, like through MyStream, or buy it via iTunes. If you really must share with your friends and family—or random strangers—what you are listening to, then this is the app for you. Since you’re probably already sharing through Spotify, Facebook, and other apps/sites, it seems a little redundant, but it’s one more app to store music on other than iTunes or your phone music library.