Many of us are aware of Podcasting, for those who doesn’t know what is podcasting? Podcasting is a broadcasting of a show over the web. Its a new revolution in radio journalism.
Those who are aware of podcasts they listen while walking to and from work, cooking, etc. Podcast is a digital media consisting of an episodic series of audios or videos subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication. Podcasts can be produced by anyone, and you can listen to them on the go.
Within the Apple universe, you can find thousands of free podcasts in its iTunes store. All four podcatchers, as well as iTunes, support import and export of an OPML files.
Podcaster, iCatcher, Pocket Casts, and Instacast, all cost $2 in the App Store, all present you with a podcast directory where you can search for podcasts and then subscribe to the feed.
1. Podcaster - A digital media consisting of an episodic series of audios or videos subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication.
Its main interface is simple and nice. A list of downloaded episodes not all are shown up on top of the interface. At the bottom of the main screen are buttons to change settings and refresh feeds. One of the impressive feature is a button which lets you toggle between podcasts, and to stop after the current episode has finished.
You can even receive notifications about new episodes for up to ten podcasts. However, these notifications often fail to appear.
2. iCatcher – It is a podcast catcher for iOS devices. It keeps track of all your podcast subscriptions. You can download individual episodes without subscribing to a feed.
It gives you full retina and voice over support. You can search in all views to find podcasts which you are looking for. It gives you the custom playlists feature which allows you to select podcasts and/or or keywords to view your downloaded episodes and can even exclude podcasts.
3. Pocket Casts - Pocket Casts is the only podcast application for iOS that does all its podcast processing on a server. It have three screens the podcasts screen, the playback screen, the podcast directory search, and the settings.
This is an user friendly app, but sometimes people found it crowded because of the options given at the bottom and above playback screen.
Here you can specify the jumps (in seconds). By default forward jump is set with 45 seconds and back jump is set to 10 seconds. It also lets you set notifications for individual podcasts.
4. Instacast – It has a simple and intuitive interface. Three buttons are provided to you in the episode overview which lets you toggle between starred, all, and downloaded episodes. It gives you the facility of marking and ordering your podcasts/episodes.
The playback screen doesn’t have previous/next track buttons, iPhone’s back/forward controls are used to skip back or forward a certain number of seconds. You can select number of seconds separately for back and forward.
5. Stitcher Smart Radio – It is the easiest way to hear your favourite shows on the go. It collects content from thousands of content providers and organizes the content into “stations” that listeners can browse and listen to.
If you found it interesting, give it a try, as it’s free. However, they do ask you to register or login using Facebook before you can use the app. You can add shows to the favourite station using the “Add to Favourites” button. It is great for finding new content.
I would say it’s worth spending some bucks on these apps. It is my opinion, you might have your own. Share your experiences and views about these apps with us.