Check out the Carboncast Podcast App for Windows Phone

Although podcasting support is built into Windows Phone 8 and still connects back to what we know as the Zune backend, many people still like to find alternatives for subscribing and listening to their favorite podcasts.

One Windows Phone app that was recently brought to my attention is Carboncast by Australian developer Jason Cartwright.

Jason built this app to connect to https://gpodder.net/ and uses its API to give you access to podcasts from that service. Gpodder appears to be a very robust directory and I easily had my Observed Tech podcast added in less than 24 hours.

Carboncast has some great features and integrates nicely with the Windows Phone platforms built in media player. Some of the things you can expect from Carboncast includes:

Simple Playlist view

Randomize playback button

Seek bar, +30 and -30 second skip

Background audio playback

3G/4G download option (OS limit of 50MB)

Discover new podcasts via categories and search

Fast subscribe to multiple podcasts

Automatic downloading over Wi-Fi

Resume playback

Theme accent color support

Despite the app only being in the market for a little more than a week Jason has already released his first update for Carboncast. Version 1.1 brings a trial version of the app which is limited to two subscriptions, the ability to manually add a podcast, control the number of back episodes that will be downloaded for each subscription and a few UI tweaks and bug fixes.

The trial version idea is excellent because it allows you to use the entire app but yet not have your UI cluttered with ads like many trials opt to use.

I have been following Jason on Twitter for sometime and if his attitude there is a reflection of how he will maintain Carboncast then it will be one of the best maintained apps in the windows Phone Store.

Here are some screenshots of the Carboncast interface on Windows Phone: