As promised in their earlier Podcaster 3 roadmap, iPhone app developer Almerica has released the latest version of their iPhone podcast app. Most interestingly, the app has returned as Podcaster. Just a short back history here, the app originally began and was later pulled from the App Store because of the name. Afterward it was reapproved as the same app with a new name, Rss Player. In the end though, regardless of the name the app still does what it should and does it well.

With that, as for what Podcaster 3 is — in short, a kind-of sort-of update from the Rss Player app. Let me explain, the Podcaster 3 app is an improved version of Rss Player. The big new feature includes support for iOS 4 which means that the app now has background playback.

Additionally, you will also be able to subscribe to password protected feeds, share by email within the app, resume audio AND video from where you last left off and import your podcast list by individual feeds or an OPML file. The big one here is the resuming in terms of video, something that was missing in the previous versions.

That said, the previous version which was Rss Player is no longer available in the App Store, and even those with that app will need to shell out the $0.99 purchase price for Podcaster 3. I can see that being an issue for some, but personally I can take it either way. After all, I have been a long time user and would be willing to spend another buck. Plus, this is a pretty big update.

The one annoyance disappointment (and warning) here comes in the form of OS support — Podcaster 3 requires iOS 4.0 or later.

[Podcaster 3 (App Store link) via Rss Player]