Podtrapper is a blackberry application that is by far the best podcasting application I have used to date. When I switched from my iPhone to the Blackberry Storm it was a short term struggle trying to make the media application on the phone do what my iPhone had done. After realizing quickly it would never happen I focused on solving the podcasting issue. My goal was simple, give me an application that can download my podcasts and allow me to manage them on my device.
I found Podtrapper by sheer accident and what a fantastic app. Over a 5 month period, I remember sending countless emails to the developer asking for features. Amazingly within days, I would get a link for a beta version with my new features available. This interaction defined the guys over at Podtrapper as a fantastic team.
A podtrapping application need not be overly complex but the usability of podtrapper is what makes it an app. I hope some day comes to Android. Here are the 10 features in Podtrapper that makes it the one and only heavy hitter for podcasting on the Blackberry.
1. Developer Interaction - No products are perfect and knowing your voice is being heard by the developer is a great customer experience. With PodTrapper I would just email or post on the forum. Marcus (developer) at VersatileMonkey.com is the best at customer interactions. I often ran beta builds that contained newly added features.
2. Home Screen - Shows quickly what podcasts have new content.
3. Delete Prior - When looking at a single feed, you can delete all content newer or older than a specific point. This option is dependent on how you have your podcasts sorted. My default sorting was oldest on top.
4. Support for OPML Files - Once you are a podcasting junkie (15 or more feeds) you want a way to bulk add and export the feed. PodTrapper provides this option which is needed. I have about 40 feeds I have no plans of entering manually.
5. Automatic download - This is a given with most apps you can schedule them to automatically download every x hours. I switched from an iPhone so this was like ground breaking technology given the limitation Apple and AT&T have on apps / network usage. With PodTrapper I used a every 12 hr check. This conserved my battery but also got my AM and PM feeds
6. Priortize downloads - I cannot tell you how many times I am boarding a flight and I needed to push my audio podcasts up in the download queue to ensure I would have the newest content for a long flight. Feeds like Tekzilla can be up to 300MB downloads where Windows Weekly may be 10MB.
7. Multiple feed views - I liked viewing my feeds based on what I had downloaded, thus content I never downloaded or have deleted would not clutter my view. The view can quickly be switched in the menu options Standard View or View Downloaded Only. Personally I defaulted to view downloaded only.
8. Headset / device controls - On the Storm the mute button acted as a play/pause button. Again coming from and iPhone this handsfree experience was important. This did extend to the controls on my v-Moda vibe II headsets I spoke about in an earlier post.
9. Mark as listened - While 90% of my podcast listening happened on the Storm in hotels or at my office desk I often listened on my computer. Marking and episode as listened on the device just made my experience clean.
10. Download progress - If I have 15 min to download knowing file sizes and download progress is important for those of us that want to believe hope actually has some control over the process.
Podtrapper is available both in AppWorld and from the developers site. When I have those options I usually go directly to the developer to avoid having to pay 30% for no real reason. If you looking for a podcasting app, give PodTrapper a trial. My fingers are crossed for an Android version to come soon. One great place to keep up on the latest and greatest with blackberry is at http://www.rimarkable.com.
Currently Blackberry is offering $15 Cash back when you buy 2 Apps
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