Review: Linada Share

Guest writer Mayuri Mehrotra had been looking for a Windows Phone DLNA server app for all her media... and finally there is one – Linada Share. A DLNA server app basically allows your phone’s media to be accessed by other UPnP/DLNA clients, with a common WiFi connection. When Mayuri had come across this app earlier, it allowed access only to photos, but now music and videos are accessible too. warranting a proper review here on AAWP.

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Here’s the app description from the WP Store:

Linada Share makes it possible to share the photos, music and video of your phone with other UPnP / DLNA compatible devices. All you need to do is activate the application and other UPnP / DLNA compatible devices can connect into your phone and download the pictures, music and video stored in it. More specifically, Linada Share is a UPnP / DLNA Media Server capable of sharing media your device contains to UPnP / DLNA compatible client devices.

Mayuri writes:

Typically, Linada Share is used in the following scenarios:

  • You want to share your phone's media with a friend who has a UPnP / DLNA compatible device, such as a Windows Phone that has an application like Linada Get installed. Using such an application, your friend can download the shared media of your phone to his/her phone. Similarly, you may want to copy the media of your phone to another device you own, fast and easily.
  • You want to copy the media of your phone to a computer or play the media on a computer that is UPnP / DLNA compatible, such as Microsoft Windows 8.1.
  • You want to view the media of your phone using a device that can only retrieve and play media content from UPnP / DLNA Media Servers and that cannot be controlled by external UPnP / DLNA applications. For example, PlayStation 3 is an example of that type of a device.

Note, Linada Share is a UPnP / DLNA Media Server. It is not a UPnP / DLNA Media Renderer or player, so it cannot play content. Further, a WiFi connection is required and your phone and your UPnP / DLNA devices must be connected to the same local area network to work together properly.

Linada Share is a very straightforward app. When you first start it, the app scans the media on the phone. You can rescan the media after taking more photos or downloading new content. On the second screen, you can set a name for your server (the default is just 'Linada Share'). (The third screen is the About section of the app, where you can also send feedback to the developer.)

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For me, Linada Share is useful in three ways:

  1. When I’m out and about taking photographs, I like to go through them the minute I take a break. I usually have my tablet (Nexus 7 2012) with me, and a bigger 7-inch screen is better for this purpose. I found the Lumia Play To app limiting as I still had to use the phone to stream the photos to the tablet (on which I use BubbleUPnP). Now I just need to open Linada Share, rescan the media, go to BubbleUPnP and access the entire photo library of the phone. At home, I have also used BubbleUPnP to cast photos from the phone via Linada Share, to the TV, using Chromecast as the renderer.
      
  2. I can leave the phone in one room for charging and still go through its media in another. I have a MixRadio Unlimited Downloads subscription, and I’m very lazy about copying new music to my laptop. I just find it more convenient to play a song or two off the phone while I browse the net on the tablet.
      
  3. My husband has a 16GB iPhone 4S, and its memory has been gobbled up by apps and photos. (Seriously, don’t buy a 16GB phone these days.) Turning the DLNA server on in my previous phone, the Nokia 808 PureView, was merely a setting under Connectivity. Thankfully, via Linada Share, the latest music downloaded on the 1020 is now accessible to him too, via a DLNA client app on his phone.

The app works smoothly on my phone most of the time. The only irksome bit about it is that it doesn’t run in the background, and it also keeps the screen on while running. It seems this is not a shortcoming of the app, but of the Windows Phone OS. I contacted the developer, Tuomo Penttinen, about it. This is what he had to say:

On the app not working in the background – “Yes, unfortunately. Windows Phone 8.1 has very limited support for running code on the background. The limitations are harsh and it's basically impossible to run a server (like Linada Share) in any useful way there. So, once you enter the lock-screen or navigate away from Linada Share, the operating system will either suspend or terminate the app sometime later (could be immediately).”

Is the screen remaining on normal app behaviour? “Yes. Because of the reasons noted (above), I thought that at least there should be a way to keep the server running for as long as the user wants without abrupt interruptions. The only way I could figure out to do this was to request the operating system keep the display on. Of course, you can still lock the screen manually or navigate away, which'll again suspend or terminate the app.”

Despite this huge caveat, Linada Share costs merely Rs.70 (about 99p in the UK), and for me, it makes my phone a little more suitable to my way of working. I would recommend it to anyone using multiple devices.

 

 

 

Thanks, Mayuri! Shame about the OS restrictions, it sounds like this sort of functionality needs to be baked into the OS itself, as it was on Symbian. Running as a system process, it would have a lot more leeway as to what a server could do in the background.

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