Apple Releases New Podcasts app. Easily Manage your Podcasts with Automatic Downloads and Subscriptions

For quite some time (like, forever), those of us who wanted more from Apple’s built-in podcast management system had to look elsewhere. Until now, the wonderful world of podcasts was just lumped in with the rest of Apple’s Music app. It all worked well enough, except that there was no way to subscribe to a podcast—and also no really great way to go about discovering new spoken word material. But hopefully all that has changed now that Apple released a standalone Podcasts app , which just became available today and is already bringing in great reviews!

The new app (which is free, of course) will work on any device running iOS 5.1 and beyond, and it weighs in at 8.8 megabytes. Essentially, it offers a fancy new interface by which we can consume our daily dose of podcasts. But it does more than just give the whole podcast experience a new look. There’s no more reason to find a third-party app for subscriptions now that Apple has stepped up to the plate with this standalone. Subscribers to any podcast also get the option of turning on auto-downloads, and you can even tell the app which episodes to keep (all unplayed, last 2 episodes, etc.).

If you don’t already have a big batch of podcasts that need managing, you can also use the new app’s “Top Stations” feature to find what you like. It offers a neat vertical and horizontal scrolling action that should expose users to a lot of new material and help you find your match.

Other goodies in the new Podcasts app:

• Sleep Timer
• playback speed controls
• skip forward and back controls
• stream episodes or download
• browse audio & video

So for the long time podcast listener, life just got a lot better. And for those looking to get involved in the thriving environment of podcasts, it’s a lot easier now. Whether audio or video is your thing, Apple just made a strong case why you shouldn’t look beyond their own offering!

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Devin Wieland

 

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