The Apple iphone.

Perhaps the most anticipated product of 2007 has finally hit our stores, the iPhone was finally unleashed to the British public last night at 6:02pm, but what we want to know here at Push Music is what does this mean for podcasting?

The newest Apple product to hit the stores did certainly cause a stir, with many people forming an orderly oh so British cue, outside London’s flagship Apple store for hours. So what is all the fuss about? The iPhone is really an iPod with a phone taped to the side, isn't it? Well apparently not, it’s really Apples version of the PDA / smart phone. With the main advantage over just having a separate iPod and phone being you can surf the web over a wifi or wap connection. Sadly Apple decided not to take advantage of the high speed 3G system, Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) said on this matter "The 3G chipsets are real power hogs".

So to the main point what does this mean for podcasting? As that is what Push Music is all about. Podcast Pickle, one of the nets leading podcasting sites, announced there mobile site (www.podcastpickle.com/mobile) when the iPhone was released in the states, which is good for us Brits as the site has already been de-bugged and is running smoothly, allowing you to easily search for podcasts while your out and about.

But what about actually downloading podcasts while you’re out? Well the iPhone has the capability to download music files over the mobile version of safari but sadly I feel Apple have missed a trick by not having automated downloads to the mobile version of iTunes, especially as you can download music tracks. You would have thought that would have been a no brainer but apparently it has been a big oversight. so if you did want to get the latest pushcast on to your iPhone you would have to download it at home and synchronize you iPhone or manually view it in mobile safari.

One definite plus on the Podcasting side of things is the apparent ease of creating podcasts with your iPhone, "It turns out one of the things the iPhone does really well is record podcasts. The combination of the adaptive multi-rate format, the iPhone speakerphone, and ad hoc recording scenarios produces a surprisingly solid outcome when combined with the freely available Levelator tool". So creating podcasts using you iPhone can be done but we can’t really see how we would use it seeming to create a podcast we need all our mixers and decks!

So over all we feel the iPhone is a huge jump forward for Apple and is sure to prove hugely popular with users no matter what its pitfalls may be, but there is certainly much room for improvement with this phone. In hindsight perhaps these apparent oversights are just the beginning of future marketing tools for the new versions of the iPhone? But surely a multi million dollar organisation such as apple wouldn't try to fleece it customers like that would they?