In case you haven't heard (and if you're an MSS owner, you probably have) the newest update from HP for the EX-485 and EX-487 models is fantastic!  We covered it in detail on the community; check it out to learn more about the fantastic upgrades you'll receive.

One of the standout improvements of this landmark upgrade is the iStream application for Apple's iPhone, available for free from the App Store.  The iStream application is designed to bring the music, photos, and videos that you are storing on your home server into the palm of your hand, available at a simple tap.  The app delivers on this promise as well as piggybacking onto the video conversion feature (which we'll discuss soon, and is covered in the in-depth review.)

Installing and Setting Up iStream

Of course, the first step is to install the application on your iPhone.  The easiest way to do this is the App Store on your desktop, although you can also perform the installation on the phone itself.  Just search for "iStream," download, and install - it's a free program, too!

Once the application is installed, you will see the (quite snazzy) icon on your iPhone Dashboard, at which point you can feel free to tap away and launch the app.  You'll instantly be met with the setup screen (really the only setup screen) within which you will specify the IP address (or other domain, such as TZO or your homeserver.com domain,) username, and password.  Upon entering the correct credentials, the app will begin to load data from your home server.

Note that it is important that you have external access set up correctly in your MediaSmart Server, or else the app will not be able to stream data - for more information, see my article on enabling external access.

Music on the iStream App

All right, let's get jammin', shall we?  The very first thing I tried was the Music interface, since that's mostly how I'm planning on using the app.  (It will be nice to stream audio from my iPhone while working from my laptop, for example, to save bandwidth on my broadband connection.  In fact, I'm doing it right now!)  Just click on the Music icon to get started - don't worry when you get a blank screen for a few seconds.  The app is communicating with your home server and will pop up with another menu; assuming you have your external access set up correctly this will be ~5-15 seconds.

Note: Your friendly reviewer does not have an EDGE (original) iPhone to test on right now, as it's been relegated to gym duty.  I cannot attest to the speeds you will attain through EDGE, although I'm guessing the streaming speed will be less than functional.

Playing a track is as easy as first selecting your sort method (I chose Album) then which you would like, and picking an individual track to begin with.  This should all feel very familiar to all iPhone users as it's very similar to the iPod interface... albeit a little stripped down.

Thankfully, you can lock the iPhone and disable the screen while streaming music to save battery power.  In my multiple streaming tests (in an area with strong 3G signal) I streamed 192 kbps tracks without a single hiccup, and quality was excellent.  Your mileage may vary based on the speed of your home network as well as your data connection.

There are some pros and cons to the music interface.  The pros are that it is very familiar to iPhone users and thus easy to navigate.  I also love the "Now Playing" feature, which allows you to browse your photos while you are listening to music, or keep on listening to the current track while selecting another one.  Navigation through the menus (again on 3G) is quite fast considering the amount of data that is being streamed.

While the user interface is indeed nicely done, it's missing two key features - fast scrolling and search.  The iPod app allows you to drag the bar on the right hand side of the screen to skip through the alphabet to quickly select songs; the iStream app does not allow for this.  The result is that if you want to listen to ZZ Top, Zappa, or Zwan... you've got a lot of jittery, annoying scrolling to do.  Also absent is a search feature, which would be an even better way to quickly find what you want to listen to.  You can stream playlists, too, which will help alleviate this problem a bit.

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