At last, Podcasting comes to the masses. iTunes 4.9 (just released) now supports Podcasts natively from the iTunes Music Store as free downloads. Podcasts are organized by category and are searchable.
To subscribe to a listed podcast just click on the Subscribe button.
The iTunes Podcast Preferences are set to download the latest file by default but you can manually get files from the ones available in the Podcast. Each Podcast is set up differently, they might list the latest five or 10 or all files in the archives. Downloading a podcast is practically the same as downloading a purchased song with the main difference that you are not downloading a file from Apple itself and it is not copy protected. Apple is simply providing an easy way to list a Podcast and subscribe to it.
In the Podcast preferences you can change the automatic download to none, latest or all. You can also set which Podcasts are copied to your iPod.
Itunes 4.9 also provides support for chapters. This allows a Podcast developer to embed chapters in the file, associate that chapter with an image and even add a link(not sure if it’s limited to an iTunes link or if it can be a website link). To view this feature check out Apple’s New Music Tuesday. Apple also provides a command line application to add chapters to AAC files(the required file format for this). So Podcasts that have chapters can only be played in applications and mp3 players that support AAC like iTUnes and iPod. Coincidence? I think not. However AAC is an open standard that can be adopted by anyone.
To subscribe to a Podcast that is not listed in the iTunes Store select Advanced > Subscribe to Podcast…
Add the URL of the Podcast feed
The podcast will become available right from iTunes like any other Podcast.
Hello, I am Melvin Rivera; creator of 
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Sweet but… Once you have subscribed to some Podcasts and they have been downloaded they do not show up in the regular library and hence do not show up in smart playlist! This is very bad for me. My smart playlist for Podcasts is set to genre “Podcast” and play count “0″ that’s what I sync to my iPod (3g) Once I am done listening to a Podcast it drops out of the list. So perfect! It looks like I will continue using iPodderX for my Podcast needs until this get implemented in iTunes. Bummer. Oh, the other nice feature that iPodderX has is the ability to automatically re-encode to AAC bookmarkable, which is very handy too.
It is cool, but there is no bittorrent support
Mike, the podcast files can be dragged into any playlist u want.
Yeah Dan the no bit torrent support sucks! Air America either needs to switch over to a better system or Apple needs to support it. I don’t care about any other podcast but the Air America ones
yeah brad i agree, i don’t know if mozilla thunderbird will support bittorrent in their v1.1
Melvin do you use a password manager on os x. If so, what one? I have come from Windows and really loved KeePass but there is no OS X port of it. What do you recommend?
dan, glad to see if you have switched to the other side of the fence. the grass is greener here. the mac os x application keychain ( located in your applications > utilities ) will auomatically in the background save server passwords, ftp passwords and even web passwords if you select “save to keychain” when prompted. you can go into the app and check out a specific stored password and even create a new one too . check out Mac 101 to get started with your mac.
i also like Password Menu, a little app that sits in the top mac os x menu bar where u can store passwords for servers etc. but i mostly use keychain cause it’s free, secure and out of the way.
“Mike, the podcast files can be dragged into any playlist u want.”
Indeed you are correct. The rub is that it requires an extra step. Not that big of a deal but an annoyance none the less. Wah, wah, wah… I’ll quit complaining now and proclaim that allthough iTune ain’t perfect it blows the door off of anything else, on any platform, that I have ever used!
What are some of your favorite podcasts?
tracepriest, i’m mostly listen to podcasts of public radio shows. particulary kcrw, my local l.a. npr station and of the nation’s best. shows to check out are the treatment, music exchange, the business, the world, studio 360 and of course the mosaic podcast(not listed on itunes).