Subscribe and Listen to Podcasts

With iTunes, you can browse and subscribe to podcasts from within the iTunes Music Store. Podcasts are radio shows or other audio programs that are often episodic and are downloadable over the Internet. From news and information to music and commentary, thousands of new podcasts are available everyday, from around the world, on every subject you can imagine.

You can find and subscribe to your favorite podcasts in the Podcast Directory on the iTunes Music Store, and automatically download them to your computer. You can listen to a podcast from your computer or transfer it to your iPod and listen while you’re on the go.

Tips

Syncing your iPod

If your iPod is set to automatically sync, just connect your iPod to download a new podcast. To specify which podcasts you would like synced to your iPod, open iPod preferences and click the Podcasts tab. Here you can specify which specific podcasts to sync.

Listening to a podcast on an iPod shuffle or iTunes-enabled phone

The Autofill feature of iTunes will not add podcasts to iPod shuffle or iTunes-enabled phone. Instead, you should manually add podcasts to your iPod shuffle or iTunes-enabled phone by dragging them to the proper playlist. Also it’s important to know that Podcasts of type .m4b or AAC will not play on iPod shuffle when it is in shuffle mode. To play a podcast that is on iPod shuffle, set the switch on iPod shuffle to Play in order.

Bookmarking feature

Just like when you listen to an audiobook, when you listen to a podcast on your iPod, and then connect it to your computer and play it in iTunes, iTunes will continue the podcast from where you left off. In addition, when you sync to your iPod, the podcast will start where you left off.

Managing your podcasts

In the podcast settings window you can select how many episodes of a particular podcast you will keep in iTunes. From the pull-down menu, you can select All episodes, All unplayed episodes or a specific number of episodes that you want to keep. Also, you can click the Unsubscribe button in the Source list to stop having new episodes of a specific podcast downloaded to iTunes.

What’s the difference between Internet radio, audiobooks, and podcasts?

Unlike Internet radio and audiobooks, podcasts are subscription-based and use the RSS 2.0 file format. By subscribing to podcasts you get to listen to up-to-date content where and when you want.

Locating your downloaded podcasts

To quickly access the podcast page from the iTunes music store, click Podcasts in the source list and then at the bottom of the page, click Podcast Directory.

For more information

To learn more about podcasts and how to create your own podcast, go to the Podcasts webpage.
http://www.apple.com/podcasting/

Steps

Subscribe and listen to a podcast in iTunes

Make sure you have the latest iTunes and iPod software installed, open iTunes 4.9 and select Music Store in the Source list.
Click the Podcasts link or select Podcasts from the Genre pull-down menu to browse the featured podcasts within the iTunes Music Store.
Select a podcast that sounds interesting by clicking it.
A list of podcast episodes will appear.
Double-click any episode to listen to the entire podcast if you wish.
If you like what you hear, click the Subscribe button to have iTunes automatically download episodes of this podcast to your computer.
Click Podcast in the Source list to see the Settings button on the bottom. You can use the Settings button to indicate how often you want to check for new episodes, and set which podcasts will be copied to your iPod.
You may view and download past podcast episodes. To do this, select Podcasts within the Source list and click the arrow to the left of the podcast name. iTunes will reveal all downloaded and available episodes. To download a particular past episode, click the Get button.