Pocket Casts Cuts The Cord With iTunes For Podcast Management On Your iPhone

Pocket Casts does not look like a native Apple app, which is what Instacast reminded me of. Pocket Casts has it's own unique interface that is also user friendly and intuitive, and you get a tutorial of the app controls on the initial launch.

Podcasts can be found by searching or pulling straight from your iPod.app, if you have any podcasts there. You can even add a podcast directly by URL if it is not normally listed in iTunes' own podcast directory, or browse the popular podcasts.

You can view all of your podcasts in the main "grid" screen, which you can toggle small or large icons. A number badge will be displayed for the number of unread episodes of that particular podcast, with the total unheard episodes appearing in a badge on the bottom menubar.

By default, Pocket Casts will automatically get information from the two most recent episodes of any podcast you find. You are given the options to either stream over 3G/WiFi or you can even download the episode for listening later where you may not have signal of any kind.

The Now Playing screen is what you would expect from an audio app - pause/play, back, forward, and scrubber. However, there is another great thing about Pocket Casts that isn't in Instacast - you can speed up the podcast you're listening to!

Sometimes, the only way to keep up with a podcast is to play it back faster than normal. Pocket Casts lets you play it 1.5x or 2x faster than normal. This works great for long podcasts such as those on the TWiT network, especially. For some, this is the only way to listen to podcasts - so here it is! If you want to view show notes or details, there's a button in the upper right that can show that when available.

In the Settings, there are some cool options such as choosing between three theme colors and even setting how many seconds the app should skip forward or back (default is 30 forward, 10 back). This is also the screen where you will be able to import podcasts from your iPod.app. You can even view how much space you have remaining on the device to download podcasts, and see how much are played and unplayed.

Don't worry, the app supports full multitasking, so you don't have to worry about having the app open all the time to listen to your favorite podcasts. Simply escape out of the app and access it without going back in it via the audio controls in the multitasking bar.

The only thing that I can think of that the app is missing is the ability to have playlists of your podcasts, but this is already going to be coming in a future update.

Pocket Casts is a great app that packs a lot of features in a nice and easy to use, unique interface. If you're looking for something that isn't too "Apple-like" and packs plenty of features, then check out Pocket Casts. For podcast lovers, it's worth the $2.