This strikes me as being a big deal. For one, it means Apple is taking the listening of podcasts on mobile devices seriously. Until today syncing and subscribing to podcasts between your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad was an abysmal experience unless you were using a 3rd-party app like Instacast. Secondly, is this a turn signal for the future of iTunes on the Mac?

As for the app itself, there are some very fun design elements. I especially like the dial for browsing “stations” and the tape player that’s hidden behind the currently-playing-podcast’s artwork.

One other note: it doesn’t look like you can manually add podcasts which are not listed in iTunes directory.

Apple’s New iOS Podcasts App [iTunes Link]