[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Note that this roundup is a separate entity from my forthcoming RSS / Syndication Bible (to be published early September). I found it necessary to separate the two roundups from each other as, while, basically, they’re all RSS readers, their aim is different. In addition, some of the podcaster apps are just not recommended as an RSS reader and vice versa: some well-known RSS reader titles like Spb Insight (as of the current, 1.5.1 version) aren’t enclosure-capable at all.

Also note that because there are several high-quality and recommended podcast/catcher apps, I don’t have a definite choice. (If you really want one, I recommend NewsBreak if you are ready to pay for your podcaster and BeyondPod or HubDog if you aren’t.) Therefore, I don’t provide you a full tutorial of any of these apps either. However, in the chart, I do give you a lot of tips and tricks and describe how / where a specific feature can be found. This is why I provide the full menu path of all the, say, feature en/disabling checkboxes in the chart. I also provide several screenshots showing all this.

That is, while I don’t provide a full, 100% tutorial to any of these apps, as with all my chart-based articles, bibles and full roundups, I do provide you with hundreds (!) of tips and tricks in the chart. If you really don’t understand how you can configure a given podcaster, feel free to post a public (no private messages please) note and I answer your questions. I don’t think, however, that you wouldn’t understand them. They’re all (except for FeederReader, which does require a LOT of learning) fairly easy to learn. Just keep playing with your choice for some hours and you’ll start to know it like the palm of your hand. Then, all the puzzles will also fall into their places.

Now, let’s take a quick look at the podcast/catcher applications available for the three mobile platforms. Note that this section is in no way a full discussion and introduction of all the apps. The sole reason for this is the main chart’s having all the information you’ll ever need. That is, don’t expect this humble section to contain as much information as available in the 60 kbyte-long (!) and tabular (which eliminates the need for repeating the same info again and again) chart. Also note that all the apps are podcatchers, unless otherwise noted (with the case of CorePlayer and Pocket Player).

Let’s start with Windows Mobile, with remarks to the BlackBerry version of AudioBay and, finally, the Symbian-based Nokia Podcasting.

BeetzStream SmartRss V4.3157 - RC1

This app requires .Net CF 3.5 SP1 (while the other Compact Framework-based titles don’t need more than CF2) and MS SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5 SP1. The trial version is pretty useless: it limits you to 5 items per channel and will not save any setting changes, as opposed to the, in general, fully functional, 30-day test version of the other apps.

In a nutshell, I don’t really recommend this title - there're far better alternatives.

Kinoma Play

As of version 5.0.60, this recently-released player has excellent (streamed) podcasting features (but not podcatching at all).

It allows for directly entering RSS URL's in the main menu. It’s quite a bit buried under the different menus: it’s available at Settings / Player / Open URL:

The latest update (see THIS) has also introduced auto-pasting features (manual pasting doesn't work as the app uses nonstandard text input fields / areas).

While it doesn't allow for direct OPML input (that is, you can’t explicitly browse the file system to find the given file), if you just put the OPML file in the file system somewhere, it'll find the contents and list it under "My Media Files / Playlists" as in the following screenshot:

Note that if the OPML file also contains subfolders, they’ll be correctly rendered and the OPML file’s original name will be used as the playlist name. An example of this is (the highlighted) “BeyondPodFeeds” item in the above list.

Note that while it streams stuff, it, of course, needs to download multimedia content that it can’t play back streamed. Examples of this are the Tagesschau videos

pRSSreader

As of version 1.4.2, this, because of it being free and open-source, pretty popular generic RSS client has some limited podcatching capabilities. In no way as sophisticated as those of some of the other clients as, unfortunately, it in no way can be forced to automatically download enclosures (again, unlike most other podcatcher clients). In the top-level "Channels" view, Menu / Offline / Cache Unread Items only downloads all the articles, along with their images, and not the enclosures themselves.

Unfortunately, there's no way to initiate anything like "play all" from inside the app either. Fortunately, as pRSSreader stores the individual podcasts using their original name in feed-specific subdirectories (the subdirs having been named after the URL of the