Review - Podcasts App for iPad

Hey there Geeklings, here's my review of the fairly new Podcasts app for iPad.
It's also available for iPhone and iPod touch.

So, when the app was first released, there were a ton of problems and bugs but thankfully they've all been wiped out and the app works great.

The podcasts app is available for free on the iOS AppStore and was designed and created by Apple due to the fact that podcasts were originally only available via the iTunes store app and would go into your music or videos apps, and were hard to find and organise, therefore making watching or listening to podcasts seem more like a chore than an enjoyable hobby.

The first thing you notice when you open the app are the large thumbnails, these are the icons for the podcasts you have downloaded. Tap on one and it will open a menu with all the episodes from that particular podcast.

On the episode list, you'll see the name of each episode, the date it was put on iTunes, the length of the episode, and to the right of that are 2 buttons. A download button and an info button. Once you click on the Download button, the episode starts downloading. The button then turns into a Stop download button with a ring around it showing how much the episode has been downloaded.

Clicking on the Info button shows you the description of the episode, the length, file size, and more. There's also the option to mark the episode as played or unplayed.

Holding down on a podcast's icon allows you to move it around the grid and swap the places of podcasts. Clicking the Edit button on the top left allows you to delete podcasts from your collection.

On the bar at the bottom are 4 options.
The catalogue, where you can browse through and download new podcasts, the podcasts button, which brings up all of your own downloaded podcasts, the top stations button which brings up popular podcast stations and the search bar.

The Top Stations button is pretty interesting, you can swipe through popular and featured podcasts which are all organised into categories. The interface for this is super-neato.
There's also a switch that differentiates the onscreen pods from audio pods and video pods.

The search bar at the bottom allows you to search within all the podcast episodes that you have downloaded or from the podcasts that you've subscribed to.

For viewing video podcasts, the app brings up the iOS-wide video player but for audio it's a completely different interface. Much like an old tape recorder, mashed up with podcasts and all kinds of awesomeness.

I'll also mention that when browsing through the Pods you've subscribed to, you can change the layout to show a list instead of thumbnails. Its harder to explain when compared to showing you the screenshot.
Here you go.

All in all, I really love this podcasts app, the UI and design is absolutely brilliant, I've never really been into podcasts before but after downloading this app I've just found it so easy to find podcasts and download them, I've even started looking into getting a GeekSlam weekly podcast up and running with different guests now and then.

Thanks to all the Geeklings out there who read the blog and support us.