Hands On: iPodulator - Stay away!

Lifehacker featured iPodulator as their application of the day, I tried it out and think it is the worst thing since the Washington Redskins.

Going in

Before downloading I did not expect too much, but expecting more than I got. iPodulator allows users to play text-based games, add notes, and add RSS and websites to their iPods. So I thought, “Cool.”

Playing with iPodulator

Upon downloading this free application and opening it I was warmly greeted by two large “Your Ad Here” banners. “But hey, its free software right?”

So I ignored the ad space and tested the program, I added GTA: San Andreas, as well as NFL and The Office Trivia, all text based. Then I went and added RSS from Digg.com, del.icio.us/popular, and Ben Gray’s OpenSwitch. All of this seemed to work rather seamlessly and when I connected my iPod the syncing was a smooth process as well.

On the iPod

Everything the iPodulator program does gets placed in the Notes section of the iPod. So I went and played looked at GTA: San Andreas and decided, “Let me try some trivia.”

GTA was terrible, so I played NFL Trivia, which was cool, until you come to the end of the game where you do not receive your score and have to hit menu about 12 times to get back to the Notes category. Really annoying.

So games were a “no.” How about RSS?

I opened up Digg and immediately became overwhelmed, the page was full of HTML everywhere, and there was no good way to go through the content. Del.icio.us popular was the same way, and OpenSwitch did not even make it to the iPod.

Terrible.

In closing

So I just decided to call it quits on iPodulator, Lifehacker’s “download of the day”, and wanted to tell you to stay away. If you did already download this application, I highly recommend appzapper, its great.

Apple provides good games currently, seen here, and lets face it, the iPod is not a PDA. So I try not to be negative on the blog, but I do want to forewarn users of something that just is not up to par, and iPodulator is just that.