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Notes on the untethered iPhone Podcaster web app It's after 2 a.m., too late to write in sentences. No, too late to feel like writing sentences. Nevertheless I've been fascinated by a web app for the iPhone and wanted to jot down some notes about it, as long as I can't sleep. Podcaster. Found it in the Apple site's web apps directory. Follow the developer on Twitter (iPhonePodcaster). What it does: lets you listen to podcasts and watch video podcasts without iTunes, almost. What interests me about it: the untetheredness of it. Dave Winer has talked about this in relation to his dream podcast device, the idea that a podcast player should have wifi, and if it does, should not have to be dependent on another machine. Steve Gillmor talks a lot ;-) (why is it so much fun to pick on him?), and sometimes it's about letting a web server do most of the work of an application so you can change devices, among other reasons. I click with that idea for the reasons he cites and because it's the way I know how to make something, being a fake half-developer. (I knew that was going to happen; I started writing sentences in spite of myself.) Before Apple announced its iPhone SDK and Jobs said Safari was it, you heard scoffs around the geekosphere. I didn't think the idea was all that absurd. Anyway, here are some rough notes about my experience with it the past couple of days of light use. Remember I'm a new iPhone user, too, so some of my observations could be naive. The app has a podcast directory, so you can find random new stuff to listen to. I was more interested in getting my regular listens so that, for example, if a new episode of a favorite podcast has been published while I'm at work (where I don't have iTunes installed) I might be able to listen on the drive home. To get your listening list in the app you export the podcast.opml file from iTunes and upload it from your PC on the Podcaster page. That why I said upfront it almost liberates you from iTunes. Can I say it one more time? I wish iTunes and every other application that uses OPML would allow the files to live online. It's part of their nature to change over time; they hate being static. Tip: I had a bunch of video podcasts among my subscriptions the first time I imported the list. That seems takes up a lot of space on the iPhone's hard drive, so I unsubbed from most of them in iTunes, which leaves them there should you want to reactivate them for viewing on the PC. The third time I imported my podcast.opml file the size of the "other" category shrunk by about 3 gigs. I guess it's caching some stuff? I don't know -- I haven't figured out a way to browse the iPhone's hard disk. All those files could have been the result of some other beginner's mistake for all I know. It seemed like I was getting extra interference when listening to the streaming casts when I was in my car using the FM transmitter. Does that make any sense? I'd like to know -- about that and about others' experiences with this application from somebody who understands what it's doing. Thanks. I think it might be important. Last, my new favorite podcast, NewsGang, didn't port in. Not specifically a problem with this application I don't think. I wonder if it could be that the OPML file stumbles over the » chevron character contained in the value of the text attribute? Good night. Update: I see the The Gang feed now. Now I feel dumb for even bringing it up because it's entirely possible it was there all along, and I just didn't see it, looking for the The Gang under the Gs when it may have been down there under the Ts. Today's search |
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