The problem I get is I start listening to a podcast on the way home from work on the phone, but before it finishes I’m home.

I then want to listen to it either on the desktop or on the media player. The problem is, they don’t always know where I’m at in the podcast. Granted, it doesn’t take a huge effort to jump to a certain point in the podcast (ok, it potentially can with Boxee due to it’s streaming nature) but it would be neat if the applications knew where I was in terms of each podcast.

Going from the iPhone to iTunes tends to work following a sync. Although strangely it doesn’t work (for me at least) the other way round.

Boxee is completely out of the loop. To try to get around that I installed iTunes on the media PC (thereby completely ignoring Boxee) and enabled ‘HomeShare’ in iTunes. I was hoping that the two instances of iTunes would pass along the meta data required to know how far into a podcast I was. Nope.

So my ideal, would be a place on the internet/cloud which stores the point at which you’re in a podcast, which any podcast playing software can (and does) read from. As a side effect you’d also have one repository of the podcasts you subscribe to. So next time you find a new podcast to listen to, you don’t have to subscribe to it both in iTunes* and Boxee (they’be both read the list of subscriptions from this central repository). Same for removing them etc.

So far I’ve not found a way to achieve this, and due to the closed nature of iTunes and even ignoring that the sheer amount of work involved, I’m not in a position to develop it either.

* Let me be clear. I don’t think for a second that even if such a service did exist that Apple would support it. Maybe if they provided a means to write plugins for iTunes it could happen.

I’ve just added a new page called Recommended iPhone Apps. Like the Recommended Podcasts page, I aim to try and keep it up to date.

To save you the click, I’ve included the page’s content here:

HippoRemote

HippoRemote is an excellent app that allows you to control either your Windows, Mac or Linux PC with your iPhone. These apps are quite common already, but HippoRemote offers a couple features that make it more useful than most.

First off, it has profiles. Profiles are screen layouts created especially for certain apps. So the {en:XBMC} profile has buttons specifically created with XBMC in mind (eg. play, pause, volume, OSD etc) and the {en:Firefox} profile has buttons specifically created with Firefox in mind (eg. New Tab, Search, Find, New URL etc). This essentially creates a keyboard that adapts to the app you’re using. This works well on the small screen of the iPhone, but I’d imagine it would work really well with an iPad.

The other feature I like is that when you switch profiles, it also switches the app on-screen. So I can easily switch between {en:Boxee} and XBMC with a couple taps.

It’s not quite as convenient as actually having a mouse and keyboard (especially on an iPhone 3G where it takes a while to open) but if you already own an {en:iphone_os|iOS} device it’s considerably cheaper and in some ways is better than a physical keyboard and mouse.

I use to it control the media PCs in the house. Both were created on a near enough £0 budget, so this £2.99 app was ideal.

MobileRSS

More than anything else, I use my iPhone to read my {en:Google Reader} RSS feeds. So trust me when I say I’ve tried a fair few. And of all those I’ve tried, MobileRSS is my personal favourite.

There are two things in particular that I like about MobileRSS:

1. Compared to others (with the exception of the buggy Byline), it syncs with Google Reader very quickly (ie. the content is there to read within a minute). When you’ve only got a 10 minute train ride to read your feeds, you don’t want to be waiting 3-5 minutes for it sync and download the content you want to read.
2. It’s got all the methods of sharing I need. And by that, I mean that I can easily share an article on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and via Email. I can also easily add the article to Read it Later.

I appreciate most RSS apps on the iPhone can do number 2, although the last time I checked only MobileRSS and Byline can sync so quickly as well.

TuneIn Radio

TuneIn Radio allows me to listen to {en:BBC 6 Music} when I’m out and about. As well as 6 Music, it has tons of other radio stations.

Read It Later

Read It Later is a bookmarking service for articles you don’t have time to read, but you would like to read later. A similar service is {en:InstaPaper}.

Using a combination of bookmarklets (in {en:Google Chrome}, {en:MobileSafari}), a Firefox add-on and iPhone apps (eg. MobileRSS, Twitter for iPhone) whenever I see an article I’d like to read later, I can add it to Read It Later. I can then view that article at a later time using either the Read It Later iPhone app, or a web browser.

One of the things I like about Read It Later is that it tracks how far into the article you are. So if I get halfway through an article in {en:Firefox}, when I come to read it on my iPhone I can continue from where I left off.

National Rail

National Rail is a well designed app that among other things, allows me to see the status of my train. I especially like the ‘Next Train Home’ function when I’m out in Taunton for a drink after work.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site. When you visit a location, you open up Foursquare and ‘check-in’. It then notes your location and assuming you have friends on Foursquare, they can see where you are.

I don’t use the social aspects of this app (solely down to the fact I have no friends on there. Bridgwater, Som, UK isn’t exactly “Silicon Valley”, CA, USA), but I do use it just to keep a record of where I’ve been. I don’t know why, but I like having a record of things I’ve done. That’s why I use last.fm.

On a recent trip to London I made a point of checking in everywhere I went. I now have a reference of what I did in London. This might prove useful next time I’m up there and want to go into the same restaurant as last time.

I only use it for irregular places I visit though. So for example I don’t ‘check-in’ to work every day.

IMDB

If I don’t end up using IMDB whilst watching a film (“where have I seen that actor before?!”), I certainly use it at the end in order to view the film’s trivia. Now I get to do it on the sofa, straight away.

iReddit

Reddit’s Official iPhone App to view Reddit. A way for me to get a fix of geek content when I’m done with RSS and Twitter.

Hacker News

An unofficial Hacker News iPhone app to view Hacker News. A way for me to get a fix of geek content when I’m done with RSS, Twitter and Reddit.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know which Hacker News app I downloaded. There are several out there. The fact it’s simply called Hacker News on the iPhone homescreen doesn’t help much either.

Football SC

Football SC offers up football scores provided by Sky Sports. Badly designed, but I get to view the scores at least.

Shazam

Let Shazam hear a track, and it tells you what it is. Sounds gimmicky but I use it a surprisingly often.

Amazon UK

The Amazon iPhone app provides a nice interface to make those impulse purchases on Amazon.

XBMC

XBMC Remote acts as a remote control for {en:XBMC}. Much like the Apple app Remote, which allows you to view and select from your iTunes Media Library on your iPhone and have it play on your PC, this does the same with XBMC. I find it to be an excellent way to choose and listen to music in the living room. It also has a remote profile similar to HippoRemote, allowing me to navigate the on-screen menu systems using my iPhone.

London Tube

I don’t get to use this London Tube app much, but when I do I find it very useful.

The general routine is as follows:

1. We’re up London and decide we want to go somewhere.
2. We find out where that ‘somewhere’ is using Google Maps for iPhone.
3. Once we’ve found it, we find the nearest Tube station to it using the map and also the nearest tube station to us.
4. Using this app (London Tube) I enter those two stations and it gives us the best route to get there.

I think it’s possible to leave out the Google Maps step if you purchase an add-on. I’ve not looked into that though.

FindMeTV

FindMeTV is an app for TV listings. Other than to view listings without brining up the TV’s on-screen display (and so avoiding annoying the wife), it’s also useful for instructing our {en:sky_plus|Sky+} box to record a show whilst we’re out of the house – or if I’m feeling really lazy, just upstairs. Being able to record a show when you think of doing it rather than waiting until you get home and forget to do it is a great benefit.

The fact you can keyword search listings is also a great advantage over the TV’s on-screen guide.

What is Flipboard? It turns your Facebook and Twitter account into something that looks like a magazine. It also lets you build a custom magazine, either by choosing from Flipboard’s pre-built curated “boards” or by importing Twitter lists. This is a very powerful and engaging way to read Twitter. You can also turn a single person’s Twitter account, or a single brand’s Twitter account, into a Flipboard. For instance, you can follow Techcrunch on Twitter with it and it will turn Techcrunch into a beautiful magazine-like interface that’s easier to read than any other reader.

via First look at “revolutionary” social news iPad app: Flipboard — Scobleizer.

From what little I’ve seen of Flipboard, and the number of rave reviews it’s getting on Twitter by people I follow, it’s certainly increased my desire to get an {en:iPad}.

It’s surprising what a difference it can make to view the same data through different clients. For example, viewing Twitter and Facebook content through {en:Boxee} on the living room TV is very different to viewing the same posts on the desktop PC using {en:Brizzly} or twitter.com. Boxee displays only the links posted that contains video, and then displays that video in full screen (on the big screen). When sat on the sofa this is a vastly improved experience compared to sitting at a desk, no matter how big the monitor is. I’m used to watching video on the sofa, and working at the desk.

Flipboard appears to take Tweets and Facebook statuses and rather than optimise them for the living room, it optimizes them as if each link contained within a post were a magazine article.

It goes to show there is more to Twitter than just “what I had for breakfast”. I wonder what other variations can be applied to Twitter and Facebook beyond the standard ‘stream’ view?

YouTube Leanback is all about letting you sit back, relax and be entertained. Videos tailored to your interests play as soon as you visit the site and they play in full screen and high definition, continuously. There’s no need to click, search, or browse, unless you want to, of course. Watching YouTube becomes as easy as watching TV.

via YouTube Blog: YouTube Leanback offers effortless viewing.

What a great way to view YouTube. It would be ideal if this functionality was included in {en:Boxee}. Unfortunately, the only machine where I actually view the desktop AND can technically watch videos is our desktop PC, and try as I might I can’t sit there and watch a video. The other PCs in the house are hooked up to TVs running Boxee.

A glimpse of the future perhaps.

Friends Activity

One of my favorite features is that it lists the videos that your friends and the people you follow have posted on {en:Facebook}, {en: Twitter} and {en: Google Buzz}.

This results in a nice mix of music (Facebook), geek (Twitter) and fun stuff (both).

Usually when people post videos I rarely watch them. The viewing expierence on both my iPhone and desktop PC isn’t the best. I’m simply not used to watching and enjoying video on them.

However, on the big screen tv whilst sat on the sofa, it all makes sense and is a good way to kill 20 minutes.

Google Reader

It made wonder what other services would make a good source for video. Most of the content I read is via {en:Google Reader}. However, as with Facebook and Twitter I can’t sit there and watch the content the various sites post. So I figured wouldn’t it be neat if Boxee pulled in my Google Reader feed (this could be all items or particular categories) and display the videos that feature in that feed.

Boxee Fail

Then the penny dropped. I remembered that the second best feature of Boxee is the way it manages RSS feeds. Using a web based GUI accessible via your favorite browser, you can easily add podcasts that can then be viewed via Boxee.

All I had to do was insert a feed I’ve shared via Google Reader and I should have the functionality I want. However, when I attempted to do that it failed stating it could not detect a feed.

Bummer.

If I find the time I might have a crack at creating a Boxee app that does it. If I do create such an app, or find a different solution I’ll post it on this blog.