PSP Podcasting & the iPhone

2:17p.m., Tue 30 Jan 2007

DRM of rich media has focussed on allowing users to purchase media for use on 2 devices – a home pc and a mobile device (like an iPod). Regardless of what happens with DRM (and it seems the industry is leaning towards abandoning it) it makes sense to allow users to complete these transactions with a single device.

I’m now podcasting using my PSP and wi-fi – no PC! One device for downloading AND listening (TIP: You need firmware version 2.7+). But browsing the interweb is still a shit experience. And I can’t buy tunes or video direct either.

I imagine the iPhone might be THE killer portable gadget, wi-fi support is included and you’ll always be able to access the internet via a paid connection. It ships with the Safari browser too. That doesn’t nessecarily guarantee that browsing the interweb will be a good userXP. The flash demo on the apple site looks impressive, but will the browser be that slick? iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen is still a smidge too small IMO. I've no idea what resolution that will be or what it will mean for web development. The browser will make copious use of a zoom function but so does Opera on the Nintendo DS and it takes a g e s to switch between modes.

If the iPhone browser is to be useful, it'll have to allow users to easily browse sites that they've grown comfortable with via PC browsing. That'll be the make or break. But there's still going to be little tricks and techniques that developers can employ to make their sites more compatible. Designing and building for device-independence (as accessibility guidelines implore) may take on more importance. It'll be interesting to see if the the touch screen can compare with a mouse & keyboard. Could this be the end to the ever-prevalent "click here" link text? I hope so!

Lurching in themes back to podcasting... Apple's blurb mentions podcast content, but the between-the-lines suggestion is that you still use iTunes and sync the phone with your computer. No direct single-gadget subscribing to podcasts or the ability to directly buy content using just the phone.

(I just read this post back and it seems really disjointed. I can't be arsed to re-wire it now, think of it as stream-of-consciousness blogging