mOcean - The iPod Equalizer
If you have ever been torn between whether or not to buy an iPod , Treo 650 and 700p owners can now put their minds to rest with a little help from an application called mOcean. From the makers of other helpful applications such as mSafe, mVoice, and mLights, MotionApps has developed a truly functional alternative to turn your Treo into a working iPod.
One of the first things I noticed about this application was that it has all the features that folks love on the iPod. The signature scroll wheel is there, which truly gives the player the look and feel of an iPod. Once open, the first stop I made was to the settings to compare the features. It was there I noticed that this was truly identical to the functionality of the iPod. You have the same 22 preset equalizer settings such as rock, pop, jazz, and so on to find the right sound for the right genre of music. Other settings are as follows:
1. Shuffle- Allows for random music play.
2. Loop- Which can play your individual songs or your entire play list over and over.
3. Sound- This consists of enabling background play, pausing, and resuming music play upon plugging and unplugging your headset.
4. User Interface- This feature allows the user to change the layout to better suit a lefty, righty, or just different size hands. There is also a 5-Way toggle that allows you to use the on screen wheel and buttons or just use the built-in 5-Way navigation of the Treo. That trademark sound that the IPod makes is duplicated and can be adjusted with the clicker setting to the desired sound level. There is also the ability to use the Treo’s side buttons and set the sensitivity level of the on screen scroll wheel when in use.
5. Help- This last setting has the ability to check for updates to your player via a data connection, answer your technical questions with FAQ’s (which also requires a data connection), and tell a friend, which will allow you tell your buddies what a neat application you’ve discovered!
Now that you have played with all your settings, how about we go back to the main menu and get ready to listen to some tunes! From the main screen, select music. You will be presented with several different methods of locating music. You can create your own play lists, search individual songs, artists, or albums. Either by means of the 5-Way navigation or the scroll wheel, listening to your music is a breeze with mOcean. mOcean will play mp3’s, but other audio files such as ogg, or mp4 need to be transferred via iTunes on your Windows or Mac computer.
mOcean comes with a conduit for music transfer with iTunes so you can easily create play lists and sync your music from your computer to your Treo. This is a very attractive feature to help complete your iPod to Treo experience, but is not required if you want to just load your media to your card and play your music. Another highlighted feature of mOcean is background play. So when you’re listening to music and you get that call your music will pause, and when your call is complete it will pick right back up where it left off. Treo 700p owners will find this player is not jumpy the way Pocket Tunes is currently behaving.
Overall, I truly loved this application and have been using it rather than Pocket Tunes due to the fact I have 700p and mOcean just works better in the background without the excessive choppiness. If you love to listen to music on your Treo this a definite must have. You owe it to yourselves to at least try it out and draw your own conclusions. A few things I would personally like to see are the ability to use this with Toysoft’s Lightwav Pro. A volume boosting feature for those of us who just want to crank it up sometimes would also be a nice addition. The cost of mOcean is $19.99 and it can be purchased right here in the mytreo.net/store.
So what are you waiting for? Grab mOcean and make your Treo the envy of all your friends!
Appearance: Very eye catching since it looks just like an iPod.
Functionality: Easy to use, with help how to guides built in.
Design: Well it’s an iPod and that’s enough said!
Overall: Well designed music player that provides superb functionality.
Related Links:
Download your free trial of mOcean.
Purchase mOcean at mytreo.net/store.
Save up to 60% off all your purchases at mytreo.net/store!
View all software by MotionApps at mytreo.net/downloads.
Visit MotionApps website.
Filed under: Software reviews
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I assume this will not play songs purchased from the iTunes store?
But still no iTunes music store suppport for purchased tunes, right?
I assume this does not work with Rhapsody To Go?
Isn’t that scroll wheel concept of selecting songs an Apple trademark violation?
If you select different tracks from different artists, does it put each in the play que or does each replace the current song playing? iPods and Pocket Tunes replace the current song while every desktop jukebox program I’ve ever operated adds the selection to the play que (current temporary playlist).
Can you create playlists on the Treo itself? One of the amazingly dumb qualities about iPods is their inability to create playlists on the fly.
Can you get stereo sound from a Treo 650? What type of headphones to do need? if the answer is yes?
What about Podcasts? Are they supported by this app and the Treo 650?
kevin: of course the 650 does stereo sound! just use any stereo headphones (and a 3.5mm to 2.5mm converter if necessary) see http://mytreo.net/store/section.php?xSec=8
jrusso: a podcast is just an mp3 (usually) so anything that is capable of playing mp3’s is capable of playing podcasts. The only thing that makes a podcast a podcast is that they are distributed regularly and can be automatically downloaded when available - this is done through itunes or any other podcast software. So you could use iTunes and the conduit supplied with this app to download your podcasts and set it to auto-synch them to your Treo.
does this thing support internet radio for the 650? that’s the one feature I really want/need
dgknox: try it, but if it doesn’t work then see
http://mytreo.net/archives/2006/08/listening-to-internet-radio-on-your-treo-a-stepbystep-guide.html
Its cool that this has an interface similar to the iPod, but until it’s able to play music directly downloaded from iTunes, it’s no different than other MP3 players such as PocketTunes.
Does the registered version support continuation of an MP3 file if you relaunch the app? Listening to longer podcasts or audiobooks it’s a pain to have to find your place again. The trial version restarts the file when it is relaunched, does the registered version?
rjbutler, the registered version operates just as the trial version. If you exit the application then go back to it the song or audiobook will revert back to the beginning. That is a feature that would be very nice to have though. I would imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to implement. May use some of the systems db cache to store the point at which you exit the application, but definately doeable I would think.
To the 1st 3 posters, this is just a player. It has no direct connection to I-Tunes music store, Rhapsody, or any other place you can purchase music. However it will play music you buy from I-Tunes or Rhapsody. You just have to transfer the music to your card. If you have an EVDO treo you could access I-Tunes from blazer and download the song to the card I would think. Although I can’t be certain because I have not tested that. But as a stand alone player in the treo 700p it does a much better job at handling playback than Pocket Tunes at this time.
Without support for iTunes AAC file it is pretty useless as an iPod. Pray for the day when DRM goes away.
I loaded it, it won’t play songs from ITunes, says they are wrong format. Then it started doing soft resets, now my phone won’t lght up and my desk top keeps freezing up….
This WILL NOT play tunes purchased from the iTunes store. You would have to burn the song to a CD, then re-import them in a non-protected format. Simply transfering purchased songs to the card will not work.
Interface is great. Whenever I receive a call on my Verizon 650 while listening to music it does a soft reset. This makes it unusable. I really liked the ability to start typing and have it jump to the song in a list. I have not found another player for the treo that does this.
Well, from this thread alone it’s apparent that loading up purchased music with proprietary DRM is really working out well for the RIAA mafia. Hmmm - just rip my own CDs and play them on anything anywhere…. or pay a buck or two a song, go through the hassle of registering,etc on ituens (or whomever’s) website, and get music that only plays on a very limited number of devices. Make it a ridiculous hassle for your customers and they will walk away rather than patronize you. And with the relative garbage churned out by the labels the last 20 years or so, much of what’s worth having is “oldies” anyhow. By the RIAA standards - most people have purchased a “license” several times over (8-track, albums, cassette, CD, now DVD…), with only their supplied media wearing out.
Forget about iTunes - rip or download your own music and play it without having to be a computer scientist to understand the nuances.
just need to know how to convert wma and wav music files back to mp3 so I can download more songs
Does anyone know why the Treo 600 is not supported? (from a curious Tre0 600 user that believes a phone should last a couple of years or more :-)
As a digital media content provider, I am looking forward to the mobile tech advancements over the next 3 years. it will be exciting times as the cell or pda you will soon own will be the media center of all that you see and hear. the treo is great, but in its current state, will appear primitive in the months ahead.
I had troubles with mOcean installed on my Treo 700p. Not only were HotSyncs slow when using the iTunes sync feature (had to wait for iTunes to load each time I synced), but after a few syncs, my SD card would disappear on my Treo. Now, the card was still in the slot, but my Treo would not recognize it as being there. When this happened, my Treo would cease to recognize ANY SD card. The only way to fix it was with a hard reset.
This happened twice. Since removing mOcean from my Treo the problem has not reccurred.