One thing I like is listening to a variety of Tech podcasts on my iPhone, but the one thing I really hate is tethering my iPhone to iTunes on the PC and having to sync it. Usually I will very rarely sync to iTunes. Why? Because I have push email using exchange on my device, I buy all apps/games/music where possible directly on the iPhone, so there really is no need for me to sync to iTunes.
The one thing that stops me and forces me to sync to iTunes is if I want to listen to podcasts then I have to download then in iTunes then transfer/sync these to my iPhone.
The way I get around this is by using an app called RSS Player and it does this directly on the device and manages all my Podcasts without the need to sync my iPhone to iTunes on the PC. The downside with this and most Podcast/RSS Players is that you can only listen to the Podcast and not use any other third part apps on the iPhone/iPod Touch. So for me the downside is I want to get in the car and drive, listen to my Podcasts I have on my iPhone but also be able to navigate with CoPilot Live 8. Unfortunately this then forces me to go back to iTunes and use iTunes to sync my Podcasts as you can use iTunes + a third party app at the same time.
“Ah but you can, you just go into IPOD on the iPhone, then into PODCASTS click GET MORE EPISODES and select FREE next to each one and download” I hear you cry! That might be true, but I can’t remember the title of every one I download, and unfortunately it doesn’t flag on the iPhone which ones you either 1) have already installed to your iPhone and 2) what you have already listened to.
Ugh. 
I really wish Apple would allow third party multi-tasking, or at least allow 2 apps to run at anyone time so it doesn’t impact the performance of the device like we see on other platforms like Windows Mobile. Or provide better support for Podcasts on the iPhone to show which ones you have already downloaded and/or listened to and to have at the very least a button that allows me to pull down the latest subscriptions over WiFi directly to the iPhone from the iTunes store bypassing my PC.
If anyone has found a better way of doing this, please leave me a comment! 
