Pocket Tunes and Podcasts!

Hi, I'm Ben Combee, one of Palm's design engineers. I've been a Treo user since I got a Treo 300 back in 2003 while working on CodeWarrior for Palm OS (a software development environment) at Metroworks. I've been through lots of Treo models: the 300, the 600, the 650 and my current device, the 700p. I use my Treo for a lot of the typical stuff like phone calls, email, text messages and games, but my most often-used application is Pocket Tunes (PT).

I started using PT back when it first appeared on the Palm Tungsten T, and I was really happy to see us including it as a bundle with the Treo 700p and 680 smartphones. These days, I use PT less for music and more for podcasts (just incase you aren't familiar podcasts, they are the online audio programs that published for download and subscription via RSS). I manage my podcasts on my PC using FeedStation, a tool that watches the feeds and pulls down all the new programs to my hard drive, then I copy them to a SD card for playback. I've started using the Palm OS application Quick News from Stand Alone Software. It has RSS feed support that lets you download podcasts over-the-air directly to your device, avoiding the desktop computer entirely. You can schedule the updates for late at night so your new podcasts will be ready for your morning commute.

One of the things I like best about listening to podcasts in PT is that you can use a skin designed for podcasts and audio books that enable skipping around in the files, and you can set bookmarks to remember where you were in the program. Plus, unlike a dedicated music player, if something in the program strikes my interest, I can make notes or do web searches on my Treo wherever I am.

Right now I listen to a wide assortment of podcasts including 1UP.com's Retronauts, a show that focuses on classic video games; NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me news quiz show; the Palm-centric 1SRC podcast; and Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech. Do any of you listen to podcasts on your Treo or mobile device? If so, feel free to share your favorites.

Ben Combee

Comments

[Jeremy]

I love Pocket Tunes. I just wish it worked on my Treo 700p without skipping :(

[Mike Knips]

I must admit I'm partial to TreoCentral's TreoCast, a biweekly show going over the happenings in the Treo world. Though, I'm sure little is news to you during that show ;)

http://www.treocentral.com/content/Stories/1184-1.htm

[Andres Jabois]

Well, yes, pocket tunes is good, but it isn't an all in one solution ... it should diferenciate the podcast and then from the music and audiobooks, it should create folders in the card for that task.

PD: Mac OSX users also need to develop for Palm OS ... easily.

[webedc]

I'm sure you'll have an ear-ful from the 700p users on this: do your PODCasts skip? If so, do you find it annoying?

BTW, I agree that PocketTunes is a great app as I used it since 650. I even bought the Deluxe version so that I can listen to WMA files. But the skipping on 700p really overshadows its excellence and capabilities. I remember before the launch of 700p, people were asking why Palm didn't just simply integrate existing solutions instead of inventing their own. When we found out that 700p was going to have PT in ROM, everybody was so excited - until the skipping occurred...

[Abe]

I use it to listen PoderPDA Mexico Treocasts.

http://www.pdamexico.net/podcast/

[Joel]

Glad to hear you listen to the 1SRC podcast, Ben! Alan Grassia is a must-hear and I'm always looking forward to his views.

128(!) podcasts and counting... we couldn't have done this without the listeners.

[Carl W. Brooks]

Yes PT is great. PT Deluxe is better because I can use it like a radio and stream music from the web when I get tired of the audio files I have on my 650's SD.

I used QuickNews for years and now love Resco's Neeew for Palm OS. It has some features that are very cool. It handles Podcasts well and I believe it downloads the podcast faster (if that is possible).

It has a built-in player for the podcast, if you don't have PT.

It allows you to read the whole story behind the RSS feeds via mobileleap, Skweezer or Google when pulled in the Blaer browser.

You can test (or preview) a Feed to see whether it is indeed valid. You can read the feeds as the rest of the stories are still downloading.

[Ben Combee]

First, I'm Ben Combee... not sure how they got the "R" in my last name, but I'll get it fixed.

Second... I've been testing the 700p MR for a while and it's coming really soon!). I occasionally get a pause in the audio when switching from one app to another. I occasionally find a podcast that seems to lose a half-second of speech, but when I switch to a different MP3 file, it goes away, so I'm not sure if it's the device or the file. I am using the current Pocket Tunes Deluxe 4.0 release instead of the bundled version.

I do plan on writing about more things here on the Palm blog in the future, including some topics about the Palm developer community... if anyone reads the palm-dev programming forum, you can find lots of my contributions in the archives.

Carl, thanks for the pointer to Neews... I'd seen it mentioned on some of the news sites, but hadn't tried it out yet. I'll download it and give it a try.

[Chad Garrett]

I admit-- I listen to the same ones! Plus, of course, the Treo Central Podcast.

[Michael Jacobs]

With Pocket Tunes my Palm finally became the All in One Device I'd hoped for. I listen to music occasionally, podcasts and ripped books on cd most often. Because it's just spoken word, you can rip your audio books with a very low bit-rate and fit an enormous amount onto your SD card.

Favorite Podcasts: On The Media, Sam and Jim Go To Hollywood, Coverville, Keith and the Girl and David Pogue in the New York Times.

OH, and I'm doing this on a Treo 600. But only for a few more days!

(755p SQUEE!)

[Dieter Bohn]

Thanks for the mention, guys. I'm just finish up tomorrow's podcast now. :D

[Ranghid Yoga]

I also count Pocket Tunes to my personal favorites in music playback.

Since the beginning of PT I own it and I like to listen not only to music but to a great range of palm podcast also, which mainly are
-palmaddicts
-treocentral
-pugcast
-this week in tech
-1src
-palminsider
-palmmaniac

Ranghid

[forgot]

I've been using PocketTunes for quite a while now, with podcasts downloaded via Quicknews. Great combo!

[Heiko]

Pocket Tunes has only developed marginally over the last years. There are several functions missing which would improve the user experience a lot, for example easier playlist management. I really would like to instantly add or remove a song to/from the current playlist or play all songs from folder XY and all subfolders.

[Ben Combee]

My take on Pocket Tunes is that most of the new work has been in the audio engine, not the UI. They've added AAC support and better streaming, and they had a huge amount of work to do to support DRM'd music in WMV format to support things like Yahoo! Music and Napster.

I'd love some UI rework -- I'd love an easier way to delete the track to which I'm listening.

[Nick Upson]

I listen almost exclusively to podcasts, and found QuickNews a little disappointing. This was about a year ago, so maybe it has improved it's podcast support. Anyway I wrote a program called PortaPodder, which was more of a podcatcher instead of a news reader. PortaPodder is available on PalmGear.

[Alex]

I would use Pocket Tunes if it didn't skip all the time on my 700p. I like the program (I really do - it's very easy to use). Now all I need is a Palm device that is actually designed well enough to support a good app - and right now that is not the 700p.

[Zandra]

Hi, I am new to Pocket Tunes and have no idea what has taken me so long to get it. I have been listening to various podcast using mypodder on U3 and just realized that pocket tunes is what I needed to create playlist to listen to them on my treo. I go about it the long way, I think, to get them to the treo (coping the mp3 file from the thumb drive onto the SD card and then ceate the playlist). Is there an easier way to do this, you mention them being ready for your commute the next day, so how do you do it?

[Mickey]

Oh lord help me!
I'm a pockettunes addict and today I updated my Treo software to 1.10 (which just came out today) and now pockettunes runs 75% slower and CAN'T CONNECT!
All other programs work the same, no probs w blazer or email, just my favorite pocket tunes?
Anyone else have this problem?

[Mickey]

OK, well I solved the problem just deleted and reinstalled ptunes, it was that easy..
and YES THE SKIPPING ON THE 700p HAS BEEN FIXED WITH THE 1.10 TREO UPDATE!!
YEA!!!

[M-M-Mike]

I still can't effectively use Pocket Tunes since there has been no MR for Verizon and skipping audio files d-d-don't sound that g-g-good:)

[Eric]

Are there any fixes available for the skipping OTHER than the MR update (being that the Sprint version has been taken down and the Verizon version is, as of yet, nonexistent)? It sucks that I even have to find a way for my phone to work as advertised in the first place, but if anyone knows of any tweaks or setting changes that could help I'd appreciate it. Cheers.

[Marty Rosen]

I have pocket-tunes on a sprint centro. I downloaded a podcast, listened to it, and now want to delete it. When I attempt to do so, I get an error message that the file cannot be deleted. What's the solution?

[allwyn]

i wish i could find someone who would give me specific directions on how to make this work...i get lost with things like "a tool that watches the feeds and pulls down all the new programs to my hard drive, then I copy them to a SD card for playback" HOW do i DO that? Do you have to wait for the whole thing to play and save it to your computer? How do you get it onto the SD card? Specifics Please! Where can I get instructions?

[mgamer]

yeah -how do I get stuff to my SD? also, I wanted to use a wifi card, do I have to choose between SD of wifi card (not both) there's only one slot but that sounds absurd. anyone??