Mossberg's stunt double solves Windows Mobile's media problems
"A single tap on its surface instantly zooms in on images; a flicking gesture moves one photo off the screen and pulls another one on. Menus appear with clever animation, and actions like downloading and emailing photos and videos are intuitively incorporated." No, not the iPhone. It's the Kinoma player for Windows phones. WSJ contributor Katie Boehret solves all of Walt Mossberg's problems with this tidy report on using Kinoma to serve Flickr, YouTube, SHOUTcast and other services on a Windows phone. There's good news for Linux and Symbian fans too:
Kinoma Play seems to totally take over the device's multimedia functions, hiding every trace of Windows Mobile's clunky, antiquated, menu-driven operating system. It's also a fast search engine for multimedia content on the phone, on the Web or even on your computer via remote search. Kinoma Play works with services including YouTube, Audible, Flickr, iDisk, Live365, Orb and SHOUTcast. I selected Flickr from Kinoma Play's list of services and signed into my Flickr account in just a few steps. My photos and those of friends were easy to browse. A section called the Kinoma Guide compiles over 100,000 podcast episodes, radio stations, videos, live television and Webcam clips, panoramas and photos into easy-to-browse categories. With a touch on the Menu Pod icon, users can add any media to favorites or to an "on-the-go" list. This same tool also sends multimedia to others via email. I wish it could entirely replace the dated Windows Mobile user interface. Kinoma is working on Symbian, Linux and even iPhone versions of its application and will release one of those versions by the end of this year.
(Photo by Kimona)