App Aims: Turn Your iPhone Into A Multimedia Receiver

Reviewer’s Comments
At first glance you would think OrbLive could deliver the moon, but it doesn’t quite make it out of orbit—perhaps it will by the next version. The software from the website installed easily onto our computer and the online version (MyCast) seemed to include much of the media from our PC, however it was difficult to get our media to the iPod touch. Some of the files were accessible, but only a tiny portion of them. As you see from the first screenshot that displays “My Music” only three out of hundreds of files available actually appeared.

On the positive side Orb Networks does offer an extensive knowledgebase, however it doesn’t offer email or telephone support. They also support a pretty active forum that answers many questions. We would like to say that problems were easy to correct, but even though the support pages answered many questions, some solutions were a little too complex for beginning users or those uncomfortable with things like pinging the Orb server.

And the strangest thing about this app, is that it’s designed for PCs and not the Mac.

If Orb Network could get this program to do everything it promises it would be quite practical. But so far it seems the online version’s abilities far exceed what the iPhone and iPod version is capable of. When the two finally meet, OrbLive will have finally arrived. We’d also like to see it be compatible with the Mac platform since it’s featured on iTunes and has iPhone and iPod touch versions. However, if you’re interested in the online version, it is capable and easy to use.

Check out our iPhone 3G review, music and movie download reviews as well as our other App reviews to help you get the most out of your iPhone.