Together Orb and iTunes support podcatching on smartphones
If I leave my pc on, when I leave home, and let iTunes7 update and download new episodes of my podcasts every hour, I can listen to or watch fresh episodes of podcast - even if I am a long way from home. It is possible on my Nokia N73 smartphone.
How is that? Well it is a little complicated, but it is doable, and I don´t have to download large files to my mobile phone.
I recently got my Nokia N73 aith a data-package and a 3G-subscription, which lets me download 10 GB per month for 399 danish kroner (55 USdollar). X-Series hands me a lot of other social media on the mobile, which I have blogged about recently on my danish podblog.
On my home-pc I have installed Orb MyCasting, an application which “casts” documents, videos, photos, and audiofiles to the phone - or another computer. In Orb, I have selected recently added files from iTunes, and since the Apple-podcatcher every hour checks out if there are new episodes to download, there will be fresh podcasts to watch or listen to every hour. Since I am a pod-addict and subscribe to over 50 podcasts.
On my N73, where I have the X-Series and at mobile Orb-application, I can choose to find the most recently added files and stream them, without having to download them. Streaming means, that the file is played right away, in Realplayer. And Orb and my N73 don´t even care if the files are .mov or mp4. The file never leaves my harddisk at home, it is still there when I come home and look in my iTunes library. I don´t have to engage in different feedreaders/podcastchers/aggregators, or whatever they are called, the programmes we use for getting new episodes of podcasts.
I can also watch new episodes of YouTube-videoes and Google-Videos via Orb. On my mobile phone I can also look at word-documents that I have on my home-pc, my power point presentations, and pdf-files, photos - the lot. As long as the pc is on, or on stand by, so it can be “woken up”.
Thank you, Scott Monson, Orb´s European manager, who via Skype from his office in Paris has been guiding this podcaster fanatic 
through my attempts to understand this (to me anyway) new programme and its abilities to support any podcast-users need for “fresh content” anytime, anywhere. Something which the iPod is not able to, and maybe never will be: updating podcasts on the go 
Not even iPhone will be able to do that - not without 3G or an iTunes mobile version.
So we have to “orb” our way to get new Ninja-episodes when we want them.
Ninnnnjaaaaaa!
[...] Jeg har blogget om dette på min engelske blog. [link] [...]
hi karin!
you have EXACTLY described my own use of Orb for instant mobile access to the podcasts i subscribe to via iTunes - glad you’re enjoying it as well!
i’m a big fan of this bit of goodness here: http://www.acidplanet.com/podcasts/rss.asp?id=208
and that of our friend ian dixon here: http://mediacenter.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_mediacenter_20070209_094.mp3)
way i figure it, everyone already has a podcatcher to do the work of getting stuff to your PC as it’s published (with most of us using iTunes by this point rather than the pioneering iPodder)
now all that’s needed to realize the dream of podcasting as Net-delivered citizen radio is a way to get at those podcasts from MOBILE devices instantaneously and everywhere, using WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE on our mobile devices to enjoy streaming content
and that’s exactly where Orb comes in - you already have everything you need, the Orb app on your PC just connects the dots for you
interestingly, i’ve had podcasters tell me that part of what they like about Orb is that they no longer need to think, ever, about file format for handset playback - Orb takes care of that as needed for each listener; the podcaster just publishes in whatever they want
i wouldn’t have thought file-format to be a real concern out there; are you hearing this at all?
Thank you for your comment, Ian - I agree with you - we only need one podcatcher (iTunes), especially if we have iPods. Anything els just creates a mess.
I don´t know if the file format-issue is caused by the choises of players on the devices. Anyway RealPlayer, that I had forgotten about
does the job.
I have a Media streamer for my tv, which doesn´t take .mov and a lot of other formats. Therefore I was surprised to see all formats played on my mobile phone.
good site pqykow