Stuff I like: Podcaster app for the iPhone

I really like listening to podcasts a lot. Podcasts are recordings, usually spoken-word, that download from the Internet into your audio player. I listen to them on my iPhone, of course. You subscribe to podcasts the same way you subscribe to a season of a TV show on iTunes.

iTunes and the iPhone do a good, but not great job of managing podcasts. I dealt with it for years until one day about a month ago I discovered a $1.99 app called Podcaster.

Podcaster does a much better job of managing podcasts than the native iPod app on the iPhone does. Unlike the native iPod app, Podcaster downloads new episodes of podcasts over the air, over Wi-Fi or 3G, so you don’t have to synch to get new episodes.

Podcaster makes it easy to set up a playlist of new, unplayed podcasts, which it will either sort automatically newest-first or oldest-first, or you can manually set up a playlist order. Once you’ve set up the playlist order, you can listen hands-free; when the app reaches the end of a podcast, it automatically starts the next one.

And those are pretty much the major features of Podcaster. The app doesn’t have to do much, just play podcasts. And it does a good job with that.

However, the app has some shortcomings. The iPhone’s limited support for multitasking hurts it. The app won’t start a podcast download unless it’s in the foreground. And when I’m using TomTom software for turn-by-turn driving directions, TomTom doesn’t pause Podcaster when TomTom wants to speak. Those are the two chief problems I’ve noticed with it.

I’ve also asked the developer, who is very responsive to queries, to add a feature that would allow users to download an individual MP3 file from the Internet.

Podcaster also supports video podcasts, but I don’t mess with that. The developer is working on an iPad version, and maybe I’ll start watching video podcasts on the iPad once that’s done. The iPad interface for video podcasts is even worse than the iTunes podcast interface; it’s terrible.

I’m very happy with Podcaster. I use it every day, when I’m walking for exercise, driving, or doing chores.

Update 3/1: Alex, the developer of Podcaster, is offering free promo codes to people looking to try the app out. Email him at alex at podcaster dot fm. Thanks, Alex!