msmobiles.com/f

[msmobiles.com_robot]

It is good to see that some developers are commited to their program and keep updating them. Here comes new version of Smart RSS for MS Smartphone that supports also podcasting and that we tested also with Windows M...

Read more at http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/4088.html

[mikestew]

If one must have an RSS reader for the phone, this one certainly does the trick. But, man, does it have some annoying behaviors. Went to all that trouble to enter a URL using the keypad? Better hope you have a signal when you hit the "Done" button, or it will error and you get to type it again! Why can't it just enter the URL into the database and leave it be. Error when attempting to retrieve the feed, not when I spent the time to type it (and then make me type it again later).

Why are URLs not prepended with "http://" as in PIE? Wouldn't be a big deal if one didn't have to go to the Symbols screen three times in a row every time a URL is entered. What a pain, and what a simple thing to overlook.

Be careful when you fire it up for the first time. It will ask you if you want to download default feeds. But if you don't have a signal, it won't load anything and there is no option to ever attempt to do so again. That's just dumb. Either a) warn the user of this or b) give an option to do it later.

Considering that it was written using the .NET Framework, it shouldn't be a big deal to run the UI and retrieval process on seperate threads. Is it locked up? Retrieving the link? Just dog slow? The user would not know since there is no UI feedback to tell the user what is going on.

I have not been able to test the podcast capabilities due to the above issues and a lack of good signal at my house. But for that brief period when Cingular decided to grace me with a bar of signal, I managed to retrieve the msmobiles feed. The engine for this program seems to work as advertised. It's just a pity that a 2.x application still has amateurish UI problems. When they clean those issues up, this will potentially be a great application worthy of the US$15 they're asking.

[EJR]

mikestew: I agree with you: this program has some issues yet...