Podcastin'

[Famous Mortimer]

New forum member, and new Windows Phone user (bought myself an HTC Titan the other day).

So far, so good. I love the interface and I love most of the apps...but the main problem is podcasting (I live in the UK, if that makes a difference to any of the advice people give).

I used Bringcast, and it works. I mean, it adds feeds and I can scan for new stuff, etc. But, I've been used to Android and DoggCatcher, which is one of the best apps I've ever had. It seems to not have much in the way of user-friendliness - all I want is an app where I can see all my feeds, then go into those feeds and see the podcasts I've downloaded, and listen to any one of them. I certainly don't mind paying for one, should it be good.

Also, in terms of advice you may give to me, I don't have a desktop PC, I have a laptop with Windows on it but it's only used for gaming - my main desktop is a Mac (I've read about Zune, but you need a PC to do the syncing apparently).

So, anyway, any advice would be much appreciated. I searched the first few pages and couldn't see any threads on this, so apologies if I've posted it in the wrong forum or whatever. But podcasting was the main thing I did with my last phone, really, so I'd really like to be able to have something like DoggCatcher on my Windows phone.

 

[opacityzero]

Take a look at Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac
Windows Phone 7 & Mac | Mac Sync Software | Sync Files | Windows Phone 7

I find the Zune app labled as "Music + Videos" pretty good with my podcasts. It's pretty basic but does the job: let's your search or browse for podcasts, automatically downloads them over wifi and/or over your data plan, and you can set a limit how many to keep saved. I wished it allowed users to scrub through the progress bar and even adjust playback speeds.

 

[Famous Mortimer]

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go. It's the only fault I've found with it so far - any other issues I had were all to do with just getting used to the new interface, which so far has been excellent.

 

[Famous Mortimer]

There's also wPodder, which seems okay but is pretty buggy at the moment.

 

[bigkevbosky]

Try Podcasts! pro. Works good and gets updated feeds faster than the Zune app.

 

[ilsonfan]

Bear in mind that UK users don't have a Podcasts marketplace so you can't simply browse for podcasts from the music hub

 

[massifheed]

Bear in mind that UK users don't have a Podcasts marketplace so you can't simply browse for podcasts from the music hub

For the life of me, I cannot see why that is the case. It's not like it can be a licensing issue as you can subscribe to podcasts from Zune.

I can understand why there are some regional restrictions, but not in this case.

 

[Famous Mortimer]

It's weird, isn't it? It's not like there's any copyright issue with the podcasts themselves, which I can download all day long on my other devices.

I've been using a few different programs, and I really like Podcast Picker, although it's a bit buggy (the dev told me v.2 is due out in a week or so).

 

[Famous Mortimer]

Update: Podcast Picker is okay, but it's still a long way from perfect, or even pretty good. I paid ?5 for Doggcatcher on Android, and it was just marvellous. I wonder if there's some problem deep down in the architecture of Windows Mobile which means it's difficult / impossible to have a podcast app that's like that.

Hey, developers! Make a good app and I'll give you $$$.