Apple Released a Podcast app today.  Rumored to be available only when IOS 6 was released, I was surprised to see it this early.  Here is short run through of the application and how it looks on the iPad.  Features on the iPhone are the same but screen layouts are obviously a bit different.

The new tiled interface showing your collection of podcasts

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Tapping a tile shows you a list of episodes, the unplayed items, the ability to to download, and information about the episode.

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Playback screen gives you 10 sec rewind, 30 sec advance, forward, and reverse button.

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A swipe gesture and you are greeted a very graphical slider allowing to seek or advance to the section you want to listen to.  There is also an integrated message button that allows you to tweet, message, or email the episode.

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Tapping on the far button gives you a sleep timer which is really nice addition if you listen to podcasts at night.

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All in all it is a great little app which will hopefully increase in functionality as time goes on and comparing to the native app, it is miles ahead.