We were fans of the first version of Simplify Media’s iPhone client, which allows you to stream music from your computers or those of your friends to your iPhone or iPod touch, so we welcome with open arms (and ears) the news that Simplify Media on Wednesday released Simplify Music 2.0 (iTunes link).

Simplify Music 2.0 adds a few new features to the mix. Users can now search for artists, albums, and song titles across their entire shared music library–the results will show up no matter which machine the track is on (presuming, of course, they’re all running the free desktop client). In addition, you can also tag favorite songs either from your own library or your friends’, create playlists in the application while you’re on the go, and use the new scrub bar to easily jump around inside podcasts and audio books.

While 2.0 won’t fix some of the limitations of the application (the iPhone still doesn’t support background processes, so you won’t be able to listen while you’re doing other things on your device), other outside factors have changed in the interim: for example, since Apple has gotten rid of DRM-encoded tracks, you can now stream pretty much anything you buy from the iTunes Store.

The only downside I can see is that Simplify Music 2.0 will require an additional expenditure from owners of the original version: it’s on sale for $3 until May 14, when the price goes up to the $6. The 1.0 version of the app, now rebranded “Simplify,” is still available, and currently costs $4.

Microsoft came out with Zune to compete with the iPod, added a couple of features, and proved to be one giant money sink for Microsoft. After a 54 percent decline in sales in the most recent quarter, John Paczkowski rightfully dubs it: Zune to be forgotten. It’s the same story with the BlackBerry Storm. What was supposed to be a hurricane has so far turned out to be a mild tropical disturbance. The Wall Street Journal says the Storm is off to a bumpy start, and has sold about 500,000 devices in its first quarter.

Now if Research in Motion (and Verizon) were smart, they would have tried to do something incredibly different with their BlackBerry Storm. Instead they spent $100 million on marketing a product that got panned by critics, was buggy enough for customers to complain and more importantly, turned out to be nothing more than a wannabe iPhone. The problem most touchscreen phones face is that they will always be compared to Apple’s iPhone and for a myriad of reasons will fall short of expectations. It happened before in the music player market — where the iPod, with its ease of use and elegant design set, itself on a higher pedestal.

And when it comes to touchscreen phones, iPhone occupies a similar top spot. Don’t get me wrong: The iPhone is by no means perfect, and at least twice a day I curse the device and AT&T’s network. But the Storm is even worse — enough for me to touch the screen, wait and scream.

I often write about companies forgetting to play to their own strengths and instead trying to follow others. Storm (and Zune) are good examples of this corporate disease. Why does RIM need to have a touchscreen device? Just because Steve Jobs tweaked Verizon’s nose? Verizon and RIM would have been better served if they had built a device that had touch capabilities but really played to RIM’s strengths — keyboards, multitasking and security.I love the BlackBerry Bold. It’s almost perfect for someone like me who gets a massive amount of email, loves to IM on the go and likes to Twitter all the time. Marry it to a great browsing experience and pack in better battery life and an awesome radio — and it would clean up in the smartphone market.

Meanwhile, I’m looking to trade in the Bold for the new T-Mobile 8900 Curve!

For the external approach, Ackermann modified a Robotech Bluetooth module, which he placed in an iPhone battery sleeve and connected to the iPhone (serial) connector port at the bottom of the unit. This allowed the the phone to communicate directly with the the module using the Bluetooth serial port profile.

The external Bluetooth module on the left has been placed into an iPhone battery sleeve.

The whole thing works courtesy of Jay “saurik” Freeman’s Veency application. Ackermann used a tiny libvncclient to generate keyboard events, which were then passed to Veency. Veency then provided the keyboard event injection using the iPhone’s private Graphics Services framework.

Bluetoot keyboard

Ars readers may be more excited, though, by his work on a completely internal solution. Here, Ackermann discovered BlueSn0w, part of the iBluetooth project. BlueSn0w (yes, its name is apparently inspired by the iPhone dev team’s yellowsn0w) will scan for discoverable Bluetooth devices. According to this Flickr page, the module seems to enable the Bluetooth UART interface to communicate

Using the internal Bluetooth module will offer a simpler, more elegant solution.

iphone bluetooth

Allowing the iPhone to accept keyboard input from an external Bluetooth keyboard will move the iPhone forward in opening new opportunities for general computing and on-the-go note taking. Taking into account the iPhone’s newly realized video out support, the entire platform looks like it’s at the brink of a transformative revolution.