Listen is a Google Labs experiment and by far my new favourite Android app, and a must for anyone with an Android phone.

Listen is basically a web audio / podcast discovery app that allows you to search, subscribe, download and stream in such a simple way that I found my listen queue filling up pretty quickly. Downloading has been easy & quick enough through 3G; haven’t bothered with WiFi since it downloads speedily and I can actually make a dent into my normally wasted data plan.

You can tell that it’s a Labs experiment though, with a few strange things that stood out initially, but no doubt Google will be all over it soon enough, and I’m eagerly awaiting v1.0.4.

Gripes / Wants:

• No support to play other audio / other media on your phone – It only played podcasts that are downloaded through Listen, and strangely, it removes the audio extension on anything it downloads, so the file becomes incompatible with other audio apps unless you add in the .mp3 or .m4a extension
• I thought I’d had an “ah-ha!” moment the other day when I realised I could use the scroll wheel to seek with accuracy, but then found the seek bar to creep back to its original position, with the scroll wheel doing nada
• Some kind of web / desktop interface tied to your Google account [you need one to use the app anyway] almost seems like a must

Download Listen via the QR code below

Coincidentally, my love of Listen has a great deal to do with the gloriousness that is TWiT [This Week In Technology]. I humbly apologise to @renny510 and @pkattera for not heeding your advice earlier. I’ll probably have another mini rant about it sometime, but I’m already waiting for the next episode with as much anticipation as I would a JJ Abrams TV show. Luckily there’s a backlog of 200+ episodes that I can fall back on, not to mention the broader TWiT network, with podcasts like TWiG [This Week In Google] and others from Leo and the gang.