Update (1pm ET): The Windows Phone Store link is now active
For those of you who commute or find yourself traveling a lot, you’ll soon be able to make your life a lot more interesting as 121Cast's SoundGecko app has finally landed for Windows Phone. We wrote on SoundGecko earlier in anticipation of the app and that day is just about upon us.
The app has passed Windows Phone certification and is just waiting to be “pushed” to the Store. Windows Phone Central managed to get our hands on it slightly early and we’re more than glad to give you the tour in the video above.
The service, found at www.soundgecko.com, is free for the basic level and it allows you to convert 30 articles a month into audio format. The service works by finding a web link of a story you want to listen to later and sending it to SoundGecko (you can even use the nifty Chrome plugin to automate the process).
That article is then converted on the fly to audio and then streamed to your PC or in our case, Windows Phone, directly. With the free account, you also get one RSS feed to automatically convert without any work on your end.
If you want to go bigger, you can try the Plus ($4.95 a month) or Pro ($7.95 a month) accounts, which offer more articles (100 and 300, respectively) and more RSS feeds.
The service works remarkably well—it’s fast, simple and the audio text is eerily human-like. It’s not a perfect narration by a human but it’s darn close.
The Windows Phone app is quite basic—you have ‘My List’ that contains your stories and ‘Popular’, which has what other folks are listening too. The app streams, not downloads the file, so you will need to use data. Other than your account info, you can mark articles as played, share or delete them.
SoundGecko is an amazing service. Commuters will certainly love the ease of use and the audio quality is fantastic. With it now being on Windows Phone, users will be able to take the service on the go and for that, we approve.
SoundGecko is now available here in the Windows Phone Store.
Reader comments
SoundGecko comes to Windows Phone, converts online articles into audible MP3s
Wow....really need this
Tells me its not available
Bummer, cacn't get it on my Arrive. IT says it's not available for various possible reasons.
Yes, a real app that I can really use in my life.
Thats pretty cool.
THANKS! Long Zheng and Co! This is an app I've been waiting on for quite a while when it hit iOS. This is a sign of things to come in terms of new start-ups bringing their apps to the WP8 platform!
Won't let me download it. Don't tell me its the Nokia crap again?
No, this is MS taking awhile to get the app out...we'll bump when it's live, no worries
Thank You!
Running a Lumia 900 - Rogers in Canada...cannot donwnload.
I wish, they make this with "Pulse" style UI or add Pulse style UI to the current method. Currently you have to email the articles.
But if they new pulse style UI where I can add some popular websites and it shows their articles which you select to listen instead of read.
Realized that they have RSS feeds option. But the free acct is very limited.
Just 1 RSS feed.
Got it! :D in Sweden
Just downloaded & installed, east coast US
The audio isn't working for me. Anyone else having issues?
I having the same problem too, no audio. Not impressed...
It reads random articles and not the latest from the blog I provided on the main website and the app also doesn't play anything......everlasting loading, what's wrong?
It's about time. Can someone inform PayPal to do the same. The link in the Canadian store is still not active.
Holy shit :D
This is really a great app!
Not sure if I'm not using this app correctly. I set up account on their site. I want CNN, which I selected, checked off the automatic box and nothing. Plus, it won't play any of the articles. I was excited to see this app, but not impressed at all. I'll download it again in a few months. Great idea though.