March 17, 2012, 7:55 AM — Podcasting as a medium exists mostly because of Apple's iPod. Before the MP3 player hit the market, there wasn't much of an audience for mobile, digital audio on demand.
Which is why it's kind of funny that Apple's iOS devices--the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPod touch--don't offer much out of the box for consuming and organizing your favorite podcasts. Oh, sure, you can go the iTunes app on your device and download a single episode of the show you follow. But you can't subscribe to all of a podcast's episodes from within the mobile iTunes app. And while you can listen to an episode in either the iTunes app or your device's Music app, Apple's approach seems designed to force you back to iTunes on your personal computer to subscribe and manage your podcasts.
Luckily a slew of third-party developers have jumped in over the years to bring a little more order and convenience to the iOS podcast universe. And a lot of them a really good. For the most part, these third-party offerings all let you search, subscribe, and listen to podcasts within a single app--and they can play in the background while you use other apps. Truth is: It's hard to find a bad podcasting app in the iOS App Store.
But some offerings are better than others. So how do you choose the podcasting app that's best for you? Here's what to look for if you'd like to take podcast management out of iTunes's hands.
Multi-device management
There are plenty of podcasting apps that are optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch and will work--however inelegantly--on your iPad. The best offerings, though, give users the option of moving from your phone to your tablet and back again. This means that they're built as universal apps, optimized for both devices. More important, they allow you to sync your podcast listening habits between devices.
Under this criteria, Downcast--a $2 app from Jamawkinaw Enterprises--is one of the best options out there. Assuming you used the same iTunes account to download the app to both your iPhone and your iPad, you can use iCloud to sync episodes, podcast subscriptions, and playlists between devices. You can subscribe to Radiolab on one device and listen to it on another.
