by George Heymann
Looking for a top rate podcatcher and RSS/news feed reader for your Android device? If you are DoggCatcher deserves your attention. DoggCatcher does everything you would expect from a podcast manager/player but then reaches out to give you just a little bit more.
Let’s start with the basics. DoggCatcher makes it extremely easy to find and subscribe to podcasts. You can import your Google Reader/Listen subscriptions by signing in to your Google account from within DoggCatcher.
You can also import feeds from an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file on the web or SD card, search for a feed by keyword, search a curated list of top feeds recommended by DoggCatcher, get a recommended list of feeds based on your current podcast subscriptions or you can always manually enter a URL for a specific feed. DoggCatcher handles both audio and video podcasts with aplomb and supports RSS 1.0, 2.0 and Atom Feeds.
What really makes Doggcatcher shine is the depth and breadth of its customization features. You can set a download schedule for Doggcatcher to download new media. The schedule can be refined by the day and time you would like Doggcatcher to retrieve the podcast or RSS Feed.
You can further limit the downloads to times which meet certain other conditions. For example you can limit the downloads to times when you are connected to WiFi, have your phone plugged in charging or both.
There is also a Global Feed Option where you can specify the number of items to download and display for each feed as well as settings for how you would like to handle auto-download/delete options. DoggCatcher also lets you specify where the downloaded files are stored on your device.
With Doggcatcher I can store all my downloads on the micro-SD card so it doesn’t use any of the phone memory or storage. Some of the video podcasts that I subscribe to are very large, over 500 MB so this was a crucial feature for me.
Another feature supported by Doggcatcher currently in Beta is the variable speed playback using the Presto Sound Library $3.99 (Separate purchase) by Aocate, Inc. This lets you listen to podcast at up to 2X faster than normal speed. What makes this feature ingenious is the Presto Sound Library algorithm incorporates pitch correction so that the speeded up audio doesn’t sound as distorted as you might expect.
I’ve listened at up to 1.5X speed anything faster and I have to devote my full attention to the podcast which is not how I usually listen.
The only negative comes on the back of all the customization features, complexity. You can use Doggcatcher as soon as you download it but using it to your full advantage is going to require a little experimentation and more than a cursory look at the settings options.
The developer is extremely responsive to customer support. According to the Doggcatcher Market page the application has been updated over 30 times in the past year. Also, I contacted Eric from Doggcatcher on two separate occasions and both times received a response on the same day of the inquiry.
Doggcatcher is available in the Android Market for $6.99
Filed under: Android, Software, Android Market, Aocate, Atom, Atom feeds, audio podcasts, Clients, dog catcher, Dogg Catcher, DoggCatcher, Extensible Markup Language, Feed Readers, Google Reader, Inc., MicroSD, news feeds, pitch control, Podcast, podcast manager, podcasts, podcatcher, Presto Sound Library, RSS, top rate podcatcher for Android, Uniform Resource Locator, URL, variable speed playback, video podcasts, WiFi, WWW, XML, XML feeds
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