One of my favorite things to do while working, driving, working out is to listen to NPR or podcasts on my iPhone 4.
I have been a big fan of RSS Player iPhone app for a long time. You can read my review there.
However, I was kind of irked when RSS Player didn’t background after iOS 4.0 came out. I had no idea Alex Sokirynsky, the developer of RSS Player had released a revamped version of it named Podcaster with support for iOS 4.0. (it’s funny as his original app before RSS Player was in fact Podcaster and I believe it was available only on Cydia)
Until recently.
If you already have RSS Player it is worth the new price of another $0.99 just for the backgrounding ability. If you are looking to buy it new, make sure you are getting the appropriate one for your iOS version. if you are iOS 4.0 or higher get Podcaster.
Podcaster App Review
Podcaster makes managing and listening to podcasts such a pleasure. The way Apple should have done it in the first place.
You can discover podcasts or just search by title or enter the podcast feed url in the app. This lets you build a list of podcasts in your iPhone or iPod Touch arsenal.
Podcaster would automatically download recent podcasts for you over WiFi and you can also set it to download over 3G if you can afford the data usage based on your data plan. There is no limit to the size of podcast that you can download like iTunes app has.
Your playlists shows you unplayed and downloaded podcasts so you can easily get to listening to ones that are new.
Once you start listening to a podcast the player has nice features. You can skip forward or back by 30 secs. You can close the app and it remembers where you left off. In fact, you can switch to a different podcast and when you come back it still remembers where you were.
You can turn on push notifications for new episodes individually for a podcast. For eg. I love Today in iOS podcast by Rob and have set it up to notify me as soon as a new episode is available. Or you can check out my favorite photography podcasts.
You can also set a lot of customizable options such as
- When new episodes are available, download all or just recent ones
- Episodes to keep – Most recent or multiple (affects disk usage)
- Auto download on WiFi or 3G or both
- Set refresh time – I have set mine to 6AM
- Auto-hide played episodes
- Stream only over wifi
If you subscribe to a lot of video podcasts, you could end up using a lot of disk space on your device. You can keep an eye on it by going to the ‘Downloads’ tab where you can see used disk space and free space on your entire device. You can also purge downloads should you run out of space.
Podcaster is a must have app for anyone who listens to podcasts. For $0.99 it is really money well spent for all the robust features you get with the app.
I would really love to see this be an Universal app even if the price becomes $1.99. It will be totally worth it!
Podcaster Promo Code Giveaway
The app developer has provided 4 promo codes for us to give away to our lovely readers. It’s Twitter time for this one.
To enter, just tweet this post like below..
Retweet this for a chance to win 1 of 4 Podcaster iPhone app promo codes from @TopiPhone http://bit.ly/podcaster-app
Then leave a comment here with a link to your tweet. If you are a Facebook user, check out our Facebook-exclusive AirPlayer promo code giveaway that ends today.
Availability: 
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Price: $0.99
Reviewed at version: 3.8
Developed by: Alex Sokirynsky
