There is an awesome iPhone app I want to recommend to you called Stitcher Radio.
The key feature of this app is the ability to subscribe to podcasts. Avid listeners know that iTunes offers subscriptions and automatic downloads, but the iPhone doesn’t. For years we have had to individually look up our favorite shows, every day or week, and wondered when Apple would implement this feature.
Well, they haven’t and Stitcher is filling that gap.
The app works by having you create stations of your favorite shows. Search for the show you like, hit the star button to favorite, and then add it to your station. I started with one massive station but recently broke that down into specialized sections (sports, finance, culture).
Any new episode will be pulled in automatically, or you can manually do it by hitting the refresh button. A huge time saver for me because I really hate searching iTunes for the same shows over and over again.
There are only a few misses with this app. One is the auto-play feature which only plays in one direction. You cannot set repeat or keep playing this artist (great for listening to older episodes) because it only goes forward to the next artist. The other miss is the lack of an ability to listen in order of release date. If you want to find and listen to the newest shows in your station you will have to do that manually.
Regardless, this app is a great recommendation, I love it, and have listened to over 16 hours of podcasts on it!
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Also, check out iTunes best of 2011 Podcasts.