Review: Podcast Push for iPhone
Here’s a great little app falls under the category of “didn’t realize I needed it.”
I listen to a dozen or so podcasts on a regular basis but I rarely bother to sync my iPhone to iTunes — thus the concept of subscribing to a podcast and having it download the episodes onto my desktop isn’t very helpful for my purposes. So if you’re like me, how do you get new episodes of your favorite podcasts? Well, until recently you would sign into iTunes via your iPhone, check each podcast manually, and see if there was a new episode posted.
Now, as podcasting fans know, it doesn’t exactly work like network television. The very best podcasters try to update their shows on a regular basis, but many are more erratic in their scheduling. This means you can waste a good deal of time checking on your phone for something that’s just not there yet.
Podcast Push is the solution.
It’s a free app that simply notifies you when a new episode of a podcast you enjoy is available on iTunes. It gives you the title and date of the new episode and links you back to iTunes to download it.
When you first sign in to Podcast Push it looks for podcasts that are already on your phone. You simply check off whether you’d like Podcast Push to notify you when a new episode is available. You can set the notifications to pop up on your home page — or if you don’t want to be bothered at all hours of the day and night with, say, “hot breaking news” that a new Film Sack is available for download, you can just go directly to your Podcast Push app, go to the “push” screen, and see what’s new.
Simple. Easy. Semi-brilliant.
“A You Might Also Enjoy…” feature that suggests other podcasts would be a nice feature that I hope the Podcast Push developers will consider adding. And well, in a dream world, this app would just go ahead and download all my podcast episodes for me. But for the very reasonable cost of “free” I’m willing to push that extra button all by myself.
Podcast Push is available at the app store for FREE.
This app was independently purchased by the post author in the iPhone App Store. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
Screencap of Podcast Push provided by Mobilewhack.com
Well, you could also use the RSS Player or DriveCast apps. I use both. The nice thing about these is that you can time jump or skip forward and backwards in a podcast. So if you want to skip commercials or boring interviews, just press down a few times. Beats pressing down continuiously on the iphone player's FF key, where accidentally double-clutching immediately takes you to the end of the podcast!
Good suggestions, Muckdog. I love the idea of the skip forward button. Not sure why iTunes hasn't implemented that idea yet.
RSS Player and Drivecast seem good if someone is interested in a whole new app for listening to podcasts, whereas Podcast Push is merely a nice little patch for those of us who prefer to use iTunes without syncing.
One problem, one suggestion.
My problem, I listen to a podcast that is published about 4x to 5x per week. My problem is when I miss an episode my iPhone only lets me get the most recent episode, although iTunes on my computer will let me get all that I missed. So, if they release a new episode on Monday and Tuesday, and I check Wednesday, on my iPhone I am limited to only getting the Tuesday episode, but can't get the Monday episode. Will this fix that for me, or will it just give me a reminder?
My suggestion. I really enjoy when the staff (or even a subset) weighs in on an issue. I see this more with predictions, but I'd love to see what Podcasts the staff enjoys.
John, RSS Player should allow you to download old episodes (though I believe the Lite version doesn’t allow for downloading old shows). Podcast Push only notifies you of new episodes and brings you back to iTunes so if iTunes is only posting the latest episode you will run into the same problem via Podcast Push.
My favorite podcasts tend to revolve and evolve — right now my favorites are The Adam Carolla Podcast, Film Sack, and Tech News Daily. Film Sack is a real find if you haven’t listened — 4 funny guys analyzing old (sometimes very bad) movies they’ve found on Netflix streaming. Shenanigans ensue.
FYI — RSS Player is now called Podcaster. And make sure if you download it you get the right one — they have separate apps for OS 3 and iOS 4 for some reason (bot .99 cents)
Developer of Podcaster here. If you want to try it out, I have promo codes. Email us and we will send you one.