(Admin:This article is the first by Marios96, one of our new Associate Editors)

When searching to find news and information about SeeqPod Mobile, the first result that I run into was ‘SeeqPod Makes Your Windows Mobile Device a Streaming iPod’. That sounds promising I thought, but will this Windows Mobile adaptation of SeeqPod service succeed on what it claims to do? Let’s find out…

Installing

Downloading and installing the 4MB program took only a few minutes. All I had to do was, type seeqpodmobile.com in my Touch Pro browser and choose the appropriate cab file to download. The program supports only QVGA and VGA devices thus users of XPERIA X1, TOUCH HD should probably wait a bit more to use the service.

When you run the program for the first time it will ask you for your email (don’t forget to sign up in www.seeqpod.com if you haven’t already) and although it took three or four times to accept mine, once it worked I was ready to use SeeqPod Mobile.

Interface

The interface is pretty straight forward. It consists of four tabs: Search Results, Featured, Current Playlist and Player. You have the search function on the left soft key and the Options menu on the right. And while the program lacks any gesture controls, with all its simplicity, it scores high marks in one hand use. Even though some of the icons are rather small, the ones that matter most have the appropriate size. And if I, a first time user of SeeqPod managed to have my playlist up and running in a couple of minutes, then the program scores high marks in ease of use as well. The 10 color themes and the 6 player skins will also appeal to many users of this program, even though they don’t really change much of the appearance of the program.

Content

Unlike the desktop version of SeeqPod, this mobile version supports only audio, text, PodLists, and related Wikipedia articles, excluding any kind of video content that desktop users enjoy. However, if what you are looking is a music  database that holds every single song you can think off then, surely SeeqPod doesn’t disappoint. For my first search I tried the singer ‘Dan Wilson’, which resulted to 482 results. First up was the Wikipedia article about the artist and then few hundred songs and custom podlists followed. Here is exactly where the main disadvantage of the SeeqPod Mobile is. Since the database is so big, the program should have the option to select where and what you are searching for. Instead the program lists the results in a seemingly unsorted way that slows you down when creating a playlist or choosing a specific song. Other than that, I have to admit that, someone should try really hard to get a ‘no results found’ message from the program.

Performance

Don’t expect SeeqPod Mobile to be blistering fast. It is after all a multimedia program that uses the internet to stream songs. It will take some time to browse through the result pages and it will take even more time to switch to landscape. SeeqPod Mobile That said, managing a playlist is smooth and fast. And as far as the song playback goes, even on my slow wifi connection the songs played almost instantly with great sound and absolutely no buffering.

Overall Impressions

SeeqPod Mobile is a unique windows mobile application that truly does what it is meant for. It will indeed transform your windows mobile phone to a streaming iPod, but only if you have a device with plenty of RAM and an unlimited data plan. If you tick both of these boxes and want to be able to have instant access to almost 13 millions tracks and files then this mobile version of SeeqPod will not let you down. And for the $9.95 it costs it will feel like a steal.

PROS

Easy access to thousands of SeeqPod’s daily updated Featured PodLists
Interchangeable color themes and player skins
Easy to use – one-hand usability
Great streaming performance

CONS

Slow overall performance – requires plenty of RAM
Where are the gestures?
No WQVGA or WVGA support
No selective search
Playback stopsas soon as the screen goes off – thanks Josh

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