It seems like more and more podcast players for webOS are popping up these days, especially as the App Catalog begins to move into full swing. One of these recent additions is Mediafly, developed by obtiva. It looks like it has some strong potential, but can it rival one of our favorites?
Setup and Interface
The interface of Media Fly is well done and pleasant on the eyes. It’s a breeze to navigate around the different sections of the program, and as a nice touch, they’ve smartly utilized the dropdown menu to allow you to jump to different parts of the application.
Mediafly account
One of the prerequisites of using the program to its fullest potential is signing up for a Mediafly.com account. This account allows you to manage your podcasts and playlists from a central point across multiple platforms, including iPhones and iPods, Squeezeboxes, Sansa PMP's, Zunes, and more.
Account setup
Quick, fairly painless, free, unfortunately necessary, signing up for a mediafly.com account requires a trip to the mediafly website. The process takes about 5 minutes to complete.
From here, you can "link" your device to your account.
Management:
Managing podcasts and playlists through the online portal is easy enough. The feeds available here closely mirror the ones you can browse though in the application. The biggest difference, of course, is that you can add and delete podcasts from the website, but not on the device itself.
Feeds and playlists managed here are sync'd to any "linked" devices.
Use
From here, the program works like you’d expect it to. Before setting up the required mediafly account, you are able to browse a list of “popular” podcasts, segregated by genre. After setting the account up, you’ll have access to the content of “My Channels", which are the feeds and playlists you've added through the website.
Mediafly uses the native media program to handle both audio and video podcasts. While usable, there are other podcast players with transport controls offering more utility.
Performance:
It’s in early beta, so issues are to be expected. I've experienced a few hiccups, such as the program suddenly forgetting my login credentials for my mediafly.com account, hangups while searching for podcasts, and errors while attempting to stream video podcasts. The application as a whole is quite stable, though, and none of the performance issues are show stoppers.
Pricing:
It's too early to tell for certain what pricing is going to be, but I'd guess it'll be either free or 99 cents, seeing as the iPhone version (audio+video) is currently free.
Summary:
The idea of being able to manage all of your podcast subscriptions and playlists through a single online account for multiple devices and platforms is really quite clever, but I'd really like to be able to manage all of that content from the device itself. I would also prefer not to have to use the native streaming audio and video programs webOS currently offers for playback of my content. To answer the question I asked before the break: For now, I'm sticking with DrPodder as my primary podcast player.
Mediafly for the Pre is certainly on its way to be coming a robust podcast player, and even in its early form (version 0.17, as of this writing), it's there in many ways.
Mediafly can be downloaded from the homebrew app catalog, or directly from the mediafly website.
Comments
I have it on my Pre and love it. Its very easy to use and I can manage all my content from any computer (home or work) simply by logging onto my account. Now I just need to buy a radio that will play my podcasts. :-)
how does it handle pausing the podcast and closing the app? does it resume playback or start you over? useless if it doesn't resume playback.
I don't have a single podcast... Are they really that useful?
I felt the same way. I didn't start using podcasts until DrPodder, now I listen to them at least as much as I use the music player.
The thing is finding content you're interested in. For example, I find some of the entertainment programs on NPR really terrific. Particularly 'This American Life,' 'Selected Shorts,' and 'Car Talk." So I set them up (just adding the urls to DrPodder in my case) and then it can automagically download them whenever there's new ones.
It's like DVR. Once you find a program you like, the utility becomes apparent.
Regarding MediaFly, I like the idea of synchronizing across multiple devices, which DrPodder can't do. Also, I thought there was something with streaming video through MediaFly, which I didn't see mentioned in the article. I haven't really gotten into video since most of my listening time is on my drive into work, but mass transit users would prolly love that feature.
edit: oops, the article does have a one liner that it does video. Robert, how was the video playback for you?
I have the TWiT Mediafly podcatcher, actually. It works fine. Though the lack of scrobbling makes it difficult, though that's not the app's fault. It works, I like. I set it on and forget it.
I've tried the twit variant and it works alright. Scrobbling does work since the built in streamer has that function. I didn't like that I couldn't download the podcasts directly, or how it didn't bookmark progress. So I'm sticking with Dr. Podder.
It does, however, also have some video podcasts that you can stream. This is the only app that currently supports that, I do believe (beyond using youtube, that is).
It uses the Pre's media program, it currently does not resume playback, you will have to start over, however, if you are in the popular channels, it remembers that and takes you to them but you have to initiate the podcast again.
Too bad there isn't a patch for video/audio podcast, like music remix.
It sometimes is slow becuase the Pre is using Sprints network and their network is not that reliable.
But I heard that Verizon has a Map for that and they are getting the Pre in January!
In case you missed it, drNull, the developer of DrPodder is taking over development of Mediafly so I would expect it to get better and could see the two merging at some point. Here's the link where he announced it:
http://forums.precentral.net/homebrew-apps/194583-drpodder-k-prepod-52.h...
Tried it, steaming just does not work for me, I drive and hit a down spot, lose podcast. I still grab mine via iTunes, since I don't use it for music 8.1 works fine
If they fixed the buggy streaming, or allowed local saving of selected podcasts, I'd love the app forever.
Also, the version in the homebrew catalog is older than the version on the official app catalog. Any differences?
I really like this client. Even though it's beta, it's pretty solid and, after hearing that drNull is going to be working on the client as well, I'm sold on it (DrPodder is/was quite good).
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