It’s just gone 2013 and we’re excited to announce a fresh update to the UK Windows Phone Store’s most popular Podcast app.

A new name? We’re keen to broaden the appeal of Podcast Lounge and whilst focussing on a small UK catalogue of excellent content worked well for us in previous versions, we wanted to have the flexibility to grow. As a result we have decided to change the name slightly to be more in keeping with our future plans.

The name change isn’t the only thing going on. We’ve been hard at work over the past few months to try and address many of the feature requests we regularly get from our loyal users. We’re delighted to announce the following new features in this release:

• Automatic download service for your favourite podcasts. We think this is a first for a 3rd party Windows Phone podcast app. This feature allows you to keep up to date with your favourite podcast programmes even if the app is closed. While you are sleeping, Podcast Lounge automatically syncs your favourites and downloads any new podcasts ready for you to enjoy next time you load Podcast Lounge.
• Social networking support. You can now post Tweets or Facebook entries about your favourite programme direct from the player interface!
• Proper scrubbing support. We now try to replicate the operation of the Windows Phone Music player by allowing you to jump and navigate through your podcasts allowing you to get to the section you want to listen to.

Aside from the headline features, we’ve also been doing a lot of work under the hood to improve the performance and stability of the app. We’ve got more to do and we hope to talk more about our plans to grow the catalogue of available programmes from 350 to well over 20,000 in the coming weeks!