First Look: NPR Mobile iPhone application
updated 04:45 pm EST, Mon January 26, 2009
First Look NPR Mobile
Even if you're a regular National Public Radio (NPR) listener, there's a chance you won't catch your favorite shows during the day. Many NPR stations offer podcasts, but if you're not keen on manually hunting for files and loading them onto a media player, you can let a program like the NPR Mobile iPhone app do the work for you.
Written in spare time by a software engineer and volunteer firefighter, the app links directly into the official NPR application programming interface (API) for NPR's normal XML-based distribution.
While not officially affiliated with NPR, the app lets you find NPR stations, listen to streaming audio live, and access podcasts of previously-broadcast episodes, wherever you happen to be. Users load the program, tap the Current Location button -- or type in a city or zip code -- and browse a list of the NPR stations in a particular area.
After you select a station, you can listen to a live stream via Wi-Fi, view a show schedule, or browse through the podcast libraries of popular shows such as These Days to find episodes you may have missed.
One nice feature is the ability to bookmark show segments, so you can listen to part of a show, bookmark a spot, and then do something else with your iPhone until you're ready to resume playback from the same point.
Another useful feature is the ability to search for content via keywords. If you want to find all NPR stories about the economy for example, you can just type in "economy" to pop up a list of any relevant segments. Each segment has a text summary, saving time on unnecessary downloads.
The app is of course useless if you don't plan to listen to NPR, but diehard fans will find it handy for staying in touch with their favorite programs while on the road.
Travel-Size Liberalism!
01/27, 09:06am (1 reply) reply
"Hi. Actress Susan Sarandon here.
"When I'm busy on the set of my latest project - where I'm invariably playing a MILF in a mad effort to hold onto my long-faded youth - I don't always have time to catch up on the latest in ultra-left wing dogma.
"Thank Chomsky there's the new NPR Mobile app for iPhone! With the NPR Mobile app I can instantly get up to speed on what's hip and hot in the fast paced word of anti-American sentiment! Miranda rights for terrorists? Amnesty for illegal aliens? Jimmy Carter's latest anti-semitic rant? It's all at my faintly-fish-scented fingertips!
"So if YOU want to be on the cutting edge of far-left kookery like I am, you HAVE to snag the NPR Mobile app for iPhone! Take it from the chick who played 'Janet' on 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' - you'll be glad you did!
"Hey Timmy! Fetch the chicken fat! I'm feeling randy again!"
Monstermind
Junior Member
Joined: May 2000
Can't top that!
01/27, 03:19pm reply
I was going to say something but I can't top Monstermind's post.
osxpro
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2007
Someone is having a BF!
01/27, 03:25pm reply
Go back into the sewer with Bill O and FOX and feel good about your greatest failure as a president. But hey, he left with a whole 22% approval rating!!
jdonahoe
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2006
guns baby guns
01/27, 08:44pm reply
Only an ultra-rightwing boob spouts that kind of tripe. Turn the page, bud, you had your chance to ruin the country-- now it's our turn! We're gonna spend, spend, spend... so start frothing and go clean your guns. Make them nice and shiny, especially the semi-automatics you desperately need to kill innocent game.
Anyway, NPR is nicely balanced with low tolerance for noise. I've heard as much right wing c*** as left wing c***. If I had an iPhone that app would be front and center.
Chomsky indeed. I've only heard him once on NPR.
Loren
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Mar 2001
Drivel...
01/28, 03:52am reply
I shouldn't reply to trolls, but I'm surprised people like Monstermind (kind of a pretentious name for some brain that can't be bigger than an inbred pea) even own Apple products or read related web sites.
Don't they know that Apple's logo is depicting the apple Adam and Eve bit into, and that anything that has got to do with Apple and Apple users is inherently unholy, filled with science and Darwinism? Heck, maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster is engraved inside each case? Did you check?
So would you and your kind please go back to church and leave us g**-loving, abortionist, flag-burning, left-wing devil worshiping heathens in peace? We don't want to be disturbed in our version of freedom of religion by bigots, OK?
Thanks!
rcfa
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2007
A laugh riot!
02/25, 07:20am reply
I'm an old leftie who's always found Susan appealing--and found the comments quite funny! :-)
Not sure why people get so bent of shape over an obviously tongue-in-cheek post. Even if you think it is (or even if it actually is) a right-wing troll, laughing it off will get us farther.
Progressives, and Susan, unite!
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
A laugh riot!
02/25, 07:21am reply
I'm an old leftie who's always found Susan appealing--and found the comments quite funny! :-)
Not sure why people get so bent of shape over an obviously tongue-in-cheek post. Even if you think it is (or even if it actually is) a right-wing troll, laughing it off will get us farther.
Progressives, and Susan, unite!
Guest
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999