BBC Podcasts on the iPhone

Apple finally launched the iPhone, easily the most hyped gadget ever created in the UK last week.

Close on the heels of the launch BBC Audio & Music have released an optimized version of their web-based directory to make navigating through their formidable Podcast catalogue using the iPhone or for that matter iPod Touch that much more easier.

Its a neat way to stay in touch with the latest News & Current affairs especially since the iPhone or the iPod Touch don't have radio, maybe internet radio will be the way to go.

As per the BBC's Radio Lab blog, the objective behind the iPhone optimized version is to achieve the following objectives:

a) to be able to more easily discover their content and
b) another way for iPhone owners to catch up on their favourite podcasts if they had been unable to sync their device to iTunes.

Simon Cross over at BBC's Radio Labs blog says that "The motivation behind this was that Apple's WiFi iTunes store was not supporting podcast subscriptions or downloads - a service we thought we could try and help with."

It is interesting to note that this has been an outcome of something Simon calls "10% Time" basically they get a couple of days a month to try out crazy ideas similar to Google's now famous 20-percent time that they give their Engineers so that they're free to work on what they're really passionate about.

When I had first thought of writing about it, the play button for none of the podcasts was visible (a day after it was released), folks at BBC Radio seem to have hit some broadcasting license issue, as though the play button is back as of yesterday, most of the music related podcasts like "Radio 1 Rock Show" are giving the following message "Podcast you are trying to download are not available outside the UK" (since I was checking the podcasts outside of UK).

I have tried this out of my iPod Touch over Wi-Fi and works quiet well, not sure how it will work over EDGE. Its a neat way to stay in touch with the latest News & Current affairs especially since the iPhone or the iPod Touch don't have radio, maybe internet radio will be the way to go.

To check out the BBC Podcasts all you need to do is point your iPhone's Safari browser to bbc.co.uk/podcasts.

Thanks Chris and Simon for the effort, however it would be great if you could only list those podcasts that are available for visitors outside of UK based on their country IP address as it is irritating when you try to play the podcasts which are only for UK.

As for iPhone users in UK I am sure this will be a link you will bookmark.

[via BBC - Radio Labs]

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