Written by tjchan on Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Review: Lobstertunes – A Fresh Catch

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Why limit music to the small storage of a mobile device when you can have access to every single song on your PC? With Lobstertunes, you can catch music over the airwaves and stream your entire collection over the LAN or internet! Fresh to market, Lobstertunes may be the solution for next generation music listening.

Overview: LobsterTunes is a full featured mp3 player with a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compliant Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) media client built in. This allows you to stream your entire audio collection with any DLNA compliant UPnP media server such as Orb and Windows Media Player 11.

Installation:

Installation consists of two parts:

- The DLNA compliant UPnP server program on the PC
- The Lobstertunes client for the PPC

Media Server Programs

As Lobstertunes will work with any DLNA complaint UPnP, a number of media servers will work. Some are free and some require additional pay. For the purposes of this review, Orb 2.0 and Windows Media Player 11 were the servers used for the test. Both servers ran concurrently without interference.

Installing the Lobstertunes Client

Install via the "Full Desktop Installer" with the lobstertunes.exe:

Lobstertunes will check the settings and guide the user step by step on setting up Windows Media Player 11 as the media server. After making sure that the server is configured properly, it will run the CAB installer so make sure that the PDA is connected. The setup program will fuss if Windows Media Player 11 is not installed.

Unlocking Lobstertunes:

Lobstertunes offers a 7 day free trial. Registration is done by inputting a purchased unlock code.

Using Lobstertunes:

Using Lobstertunes is simple and easy, as it takes care of all of the hard work for you. It automatically searches and connects to media servers. As such, the user’s only task is to select the desired music and play! LobsterTunes solves two of the most vexing problems for wireless music players: the downtime while waiting for tunes to download, and pauses in the music when you briefly lose your wireless connection. Once the first file is downloaded and begins playing on the Pocket PC, LobsterTunes’s advanced caching capabilities will automatically go and “catch” the additional tunes in the playlist. With this feature, users will not have to wait for new music to download or suffer annoying drop-outs when the wireless connection is broken.

Full Featured MP3 Player:

Lobstertunes is a full featured mp3 player with the ability to shuffle songs, repeat songs, as well as create a "QuickMix". After finding media servers, selecting this option will randomly create a playlist from all available sources of music (media servers as well as any music on the mobile device and its removable storage cards).

Selecting Songs:

On the my music tag, simply browse through available media files and click the [Add] soft button to add them to the playlist. Seen here are the two media servers – WM11 and Orb 2.0 as well as other media files that is on my Axim.

It is important to note that at this time Lobster can only play non-DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected media as this is not a limitation of Lobstertunes but of all DLNA UPnP music servers.

Album Art:

Lobstertunes also has the ability to search for album art. Not all songs have album art available for download but should it be available, selecting "Find Art…" will cause Lobster to hunt for artwork.

Biography:

Lobstertunes also has the ability to search for information about songs and artists. By selecting "Biography…" Lobstertunes will open a web browser and display any information that may be available for the currently playing song such as information about the composer or the album while one listens to the music. This is a great feature for learning about new songs, artists, and styles!

Streaming Radio:

Just for jollies Lobstertunes has a radio listening feature that’s in the works and not currently supported yet. It works with some quirks (remember – this feature isn’t officially supported yet).

Create a My Documents’My Radio directory on your mobile device.
Create and place a text file created with notepad with a .fm suffix which contains only the URL of a media stream.
Next time Lobster starts under the "My Music" tab there is a tab called My Radio!

I’m looking forward seeing this feature polished and perfected!

Conclusion:

Lobstertunes is simply brilliant. It brings live streaming music to one’s doorstep and is simple to configure and use. After Lobstertunes finds the music servers, adding music can be done manually or with a "quickmix" which is great for instant listening. The album art and biography features allow one to learn more about the music that they listen too as well as see album art which re-adds a dimension that is lost when dealing with digital media. This is an excellent product that is definitely worth your consideration. Enjoy a fresh way to listen to your music with the catch of the day - Lobstertunes, its fresh to market!

Name: Lobstertunes
Version: 1.1.1.0
Platform: WM5 Pocket PC Phone or PDA
Developer: Electric Pocket
Available From: JAMM Store
Price: $19.95 Introductory Price
Trial: Yes – 7 Days
Devices Used for Review: Dell Axim X51v, i-Mate JAQ3