Upgrade to a More Powerful Music Player

Throughout the chapter, I've mentioned that you might want to consider a more powerful third-party media player for digital music if you want more features than the built-in RealPlayer application offers. Some of these features might include support for additional music formats, such as WMA and AAC, not to mention streaming audio that you can listen to live over the wireless Web or through another wireless network connection, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Tip

Use the Select All and Select None buttons to quickly select and deselect all songs for the playlist.

Several third-party media players are available for Treo devices, but one that stands out is Pocket Tunes by NormSoft. Pocket Tunes supports WAV, MP3, and WMA music files, along with streaming audio, an equalizer, and user interface skins that enable you to change the player's look and feel. Figure 13.8 shows Pocket Tunes busy playing an MP3 song.

Figure 13.8. The Pocket Tunes media player takes Treo digital music playback to another level.

It's important to point out that even though Pocket Tunes supports WMA files, it does not support WMA files with DRM restrictions, such as those purchased through MSN Music. However, if you use Windows Media Player to rip songs from CDs in the WMA format, you can play them just fine in Pocket Tunes; when you rip songs yourself, they don't have any DRM restrictions. To download a trial version and check out Pocket Tunes, visit the Pocket Tunes website at http://www.pocket-tunes.com/.

Tip

To edit a playlist, tap the Edit button while viewing the songs in the playlist.

Mac users who are more comfortable with the AAC digital music format might want to check into another media player called Kinoma Player. Kinoma Player can play music files in the AAC format, along with video files in the MPEG-4 video format. Similar to Pocket Tunes, Kinoma doesn't support AAC files with DRM restrictions, such as those purchased through Apple's iTunes service. However, you can play unrestricted AAC files (ripped songs) all you want. To download a free trial of Kinoma Player, visit the website at http://www.kinoma.com/.