Apple ships iTunes 4.9, color iPods

Gone are the black and white ipods, all iPods (except the shuffle and minis) are color now.

Even bigger news, Apple has shipped iTunes 4.9 with podcasting support. The UI is a little goofy. You go to the iTunes Music Store and subscribe to a podcast there and it is added as a new class of audio at the top of the list, like Library, Music Store, etc. Not just a playlist.

The first two podcasts I subscribed to were bookmarkable AAC files. You can add your own via the Advanced menu, Subscribe to podcast.

The iTunes Music Store had the open source sex show, and gay escapades, but not The MUG (Mac Users Group) Center podcast.

Several podcasts were listed 2-4 times on a search.

iTunes does not appear to convert podcasts to bookmarkable AAC files automatically. BOO! Oh but wait! All podcasts are bookmarkable now! The new ipod software and iTunes know how to work with mp3s, etc, to keep your files in sync.

For those confused, this means that if I start listening to an hour long podcast at home and get 25% of the way through when I need to leave, I simply pause the podcast, update my ipod, go to the car, plop the iPod into the cradle and press play. The podcast will pick up where I left off. When I get home, I update the ipod again, and iTunes will pick up where the iPod left off. Sweet.

Looks great!