I was going to let this subject go but there’s one thing that’s annoying me about some of the arguments being made as to why Podcaster was rejected when other Apps which allow streaming remain. Several people have said that it’s about bandwidth and that the other Apps are ok because they only stream podcasts where as podcaster downloads them and therefore could eat up more bandwidth.
There’s a problem with this hypothesis however. If I want to watch a video podcast for example, say Photoshop TV which is delivered as a fairly big file. The latest episode is 206 mb. So downloading that over 3G or edge would be a bandwidth hog, right? Obviously. If I used something like podcaster I’d be downloading that whole 206 mb to my iPhone, potentially over the cellular network.
Potentially, yes downloading multiple files at once could max out your connection, but depending on the data rate of the podcast the iPhone would not be able to download substantially faster than it could stream anyway. (By my calculations, using the Photoshop TV example it would be just under twice as fast under ideal conditions)
The thing is though, If I used some other Application which only allows streaming I’m still transferring the whole 206 mb across the network (if I watch the whole thing) the only difference is I’d be doing it more slowly. Either way I’m still transferring the same amount of data. People are arguing that Apple is acting on behalf of the network operators, but If networks are that concerned about data usage why not just include a cap like O2 does here in Ireland?
(As a side point also consider the number of 3G modems out there, which use the same network. Here in Ireland there are at least 3 different vendors all offering 3G modems, including O2, Ireland’s iPhone partner and it uses the same 3G network as the iPhone does, so there is nothing to stop someone using one of these cards to download large files.)
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