A few weeks back I mentioned the fact that I am getting more into listening to podcasts. My favorite show is the Lavar Arrington Show on CBS Radio. Thanks to Rod’s suggestion I started listening to Windows Weekly too. Windows Phone, despite the existing install base, does not have many great podcasting apps. Traditionally, most people would use a Zune or iPod, but Rod pointed out all the benefits of a podcasting app that can leverage your mobile phones data plan (See 10 Reason’s Podtrapper is Blackberry Gold). I have gone through several apps and today I am using YomoMedia for Windows Mobile. Finally an application developer built an app for Windows Phone that has a fantastic interface.
What is a Podcast
The best way to describe a podcast is by thinking about time shifted talk radio. All the file formats you can get music in, podcasts are often available in as well. The benefit is you pick a topic your interested in and chances are someone is doing a podcast on this topic. Most podcasts are provided for free and you can subscribe to the content in the Zune Market Place, iTunes, or from various sites. Essentially podcasts can be updated automatically by subscribing your RSS Reader or podcasting app with check back to determine if a new show has been published. While RSS is an amazing technology this is enough to give a basic understanding of what a podcast is.
I Just Stumbled on it
I found YomoMedia when searching the Windows Market Place. I guess there are benefits to not having an app store cluttered with tons of CR-App(le)Trash. Based on what I could see in the market place I decided to give YomoMedia for Windows Mobile a shot. Generally I like the software. It has a great user interface and navigation around the application is relatively simple. I know I am hitting on this point again but the fact I do not have to sync my phone with my computer for podcasts is a great option. I should also mention I am an AT&T customer and unlike iPhone users I am not restricted to 10MB downloads of podcasts. I have downloaded a 100 MB podcasts. No application is without flaw so I wanted to give a rundown of the things I liked and disliked about YomoMedia.
Pro’s
Complete Touch Interface
Microsoft (Specifically the Bing app team) Take note, this is how you build a Windows Phone app. These guys made sure that there app was easy to navigate with one finger. (I would love to see some overlay buttons but what exists is excellent)
The Online Account is a good idea
There is an option to create an account on the yomomedia.com website. This allows you to manage your subscriptions in a web browser and then sync your phone to the website. I know I talked to the value of not having to use a computer but this is an amazing option. I can set things up on the computer and without connecting I can pull down all the subscriptions and settings.
Bundling Options
There is an option available to group podcasts together. Think categories but they are called Bundles. This is great for organizing your podcasts by area of interest.
Clean Display
When you look at the content in an individual feed the thumb nail images give a clean and easy to read interface.
Fast Navigation
Navigating through the interface was fast compared to some other apps. I did notice a slow down when you click on a Feed as it renders the episodes. I am not sure the cause of the slow down I suspect it would be lack of filtering options on the feed.
Customer Support Actually Exists
When looking at the website users can provide feedback and issues. I was happy to see active responses from the YomoMedia team. Also I sent them an email, in fairness, just to make sure I did not overlook a feature. I was really surprised to get a response back the same day. Awesome!
There are a host of other great options that I did not mention (Global and Individual podcast settings, Managing podcasts settings from the Website to name a few) but the above were my favorites.
Cons
The bundle Scrolling is way too fast
I like the fact that the bundles are at the top of the screen. This makes selection quick and easy. The problem I have is they give you the ability to slide your finger and scroll the Bundles. But once you do, it is a crap shoot to stop it on the Bundle you want. This needs to be slowed down. (If you slide your finger across the middle of the screen it goes to the next Bundle in line.
Way too many feeds by default
When you initially install the product there are a bunch of feeds there by default. There are even more online. Way to many. Since there is no way that I can see to remove the feeds on my phone I spent the first 5 minutes, after registering, removing all the feeds from the online account. This required two syncs before my phone was ready. The first one that added my phone to the account then when it synced again all my updates were done. This is too much. After having a conversation with the guys at YomoMedia the said they have been wrestling with this and may reduce it a bit.
Install recommendations don’t match the capabilities of the installer
The recommendation from YomoMedia is to install the app on a memory card (if you have one). This way you do not download too many podcasts and fill up your phones main memory. The problem is that I got the app from Mobile Marketplace which does not give you an option to install on a memory card. Honestly this should be irrelevant because where I want to store my podcasts should be a configurable option. That is how it works in apps like PodTrapper, BeyondPod, and Google Listen.
Segments not taken into consideration
This is a huge problem for me. Not all podcasts are done in a single file. The Lavar Arrington show is broken into 16 segments. When the app goes and downloads the new show it only gets the last segment. This leads into the next issue.
I cannot control how may podcasts are downloaded
This previous problem could be easily solved by allowing me to specify how many podcasts to download. But nowhere in the app can I find an option to configure this. I am not sure how they skipped this option but this is pretty basic. There is an option to choose how many podcasts to keep. But not how many to get. So I am stuck manually downloading segments. This oversight also hurts when trying new shows. For example I may want to listen to the last three episodes of Windows Weekly but it will only get the last one initially and automatically. As a work around YomoMedia dev suggested that I simply go to the website and push the shows to my phone. This is a good work around for the time being but hopefully they change this behavior.
Definitely overlooked segments!!
So now I decided to press on and continue with the app. I manually downloaded the rest of the segments in my podcast. I then decided to play last Friday’s show starting with segment 1. Great to listen to while on the treadmill. The first segment ends after 9 minutes and there is just silence. I pause the treadmill and look at my screen only to be disheartened that only segment 1 was sent to the media player. Every time a segment ends I have to go back and play the next one. If I hit play it should automatically send all the available files to the media player so that no further interaction is needed from me. Better yet a smart play-list option that allows me to specify how each podcast is handled. For example when I play my segmented show automatically play the latest 16 segments, or the latest with the same date. To take this a bit further the shows should be stored by date to keep it more organized.
Final Thoughts
Overall I really like YomoMedia. Mostly because of the complete touch interface. But also because I see a lot of potential in it. It has the right cost (free) and it looks really good. While I can easily live with the first few issues the last three are really painful. I will say though that after having a conversation with the guys over at YomoMedia I like the app even more. If you are looking for a good podcasting app for Windows Mobile then give YomoMedia a try.
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