Pocket Casts iPhone app VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

As a heavy podcast listener I’m constantly frustrated by Apple’s handling of podcasts. Each day new episodes of our favourite podcasts are released, so naturally you want to download all the latest. Well more than 3 years on from the release of the iPhone, there’s still no way to do it directly from the device. That was until today.

Of course you can set or force iTunes on the desktop to download all the latest eps at once, connect your iOS device via USB and sync the new content across. The problem is, I found myself turning on a computer just for this process – crazy considering the WiFi-connected world we live in today.

Pocket Casts is a brand new podcast app that arrived in the App Store today. For A$2.49 the price is absolutely good value for the functionality you get. To get started you can jump into settings and very easily import your existing podcasts from the iPod app. You can also Search for podcasts or manually enter a feed URL if your really keen.

Browsing the list of available podcasts is done by the first tab. Complete with album art, each podcast shows a badge to indicate how many new episodes are available. You can choose to download episode individually or stream them straight to the device. Best of all is that awesome ‘Download all’ button, with a single press you can get up to date in an instant.

The app gets even better when you realise background downloading and playback is also supported, allowing you go check Facebook while your waiting. There’s currently 3 different themes to choose from which just change the application highlight colour for a bit of personalisation.

For a 1.0 application, its extremely polished and something that’s been lacking from Apple’s own iPod app for more than 3 years.

For more information on Pocket Casts check out Shifty Jelly

Download the Pocket Casts from iTunes.

Sure the iPhone app store started the mainstream trend, but almost every mobile platform now has an app store.

Despite this the first episode seems very heavily weighted towards iPhone apps. Not too surprising given it’s popularity.

Patrick Norton’s the host of AppJudgement, and while I usually like Patricks work (like on DL.TV back in the day or HDNation), but this show could really have used a fresh host. Sorry Patrick.

Anyway, if your after mobile app reviews, without spending the money to try them out, check out App Judgement on Revision 3.

Update: Episode 2 is now out and features David Prager as the host, so perhaps we’ll see a rotating roster.