Make Your Podcast iPhone-Compatible

Christopher Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast has just released a tool to easily generate an iPhone-compatible page for your podcast. It is called the Financial Aid Podcast Podcaster iPhone Kit, and it is a free download.

from Chris’s site:

This simple little web page parses your podcast’s XML feed and slaps it into a nice page designed to render well in Safari, which is the browser on which the iPhone operates. It also grabs your feed’s image and displays it as the icons.

I installed it in only a couple of minutes, giving me this iPhone-compatible version of Boston Behind the Scenes.

You can get the file here: [http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/iphone.zip], make a few simple modifications, then upload it to your webserver.

Read on for more specific instructions.

1. Download the Financial Aid Podcast iPhone Kit.
2. Unzip the folder (which should be called iphone) to your hard drive.
3. You”ll find a file called config.php in the iphone folder. Open this with a text editor like Notepad, BB Edit, etc. and replace Chris’s podcast info with your own. Here’s the contents of the file with what you need to change highlighted in red:
   
   <?php//iPhone configuration page
   // Created by Christopher S. Penn
   // Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution Non Commercial Use Only Sharealike 3.0 US License
   // Do not use any form of punctuation except periods, commas, or dashes

   // Enter the name of your podcast.
   $podcastname=”Financial Aid Podcast“;

   // Enter your blog/podcast homepage URL – NOT the RSS feed
   $podcastweb=”http://www.FinancialAidPodcast.com“;

   // Enter your podcast RSS feed URL
   $rssfeed=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/studentfinancialaidnews“;

   // Enter your name or your company’s name – keep it short
   $author=”Christopher S. Penn“;

   // If your show has a call in number – and it should – put it here
   // This is a US format number – if you need a free call in line,
   // Try www.K7.net
   $callin=”206-350-1208“; // US format xxx-xxx-xxxx

   ?>

4. Upload the iphone folder and its now-modified contents to your web hosting provider. It doesn’t have to be on the same domain as you podcast, but I would think the best place to put it is http://www.yourpodcast.com/iphone/
5. Set the folder’s permissions to writeable (you may not need this step with some hosts).
6. Create a link to your iPhone-ready site from your podcast’s home page.
7. Be one of the first podcasters to have an iPhone ready show!

Chris has released the Financial Aid Podcast iPhone Kit under a Creative Commons License allowing you to adapt it and improve upon it — just make sure you give Chris credit if you do make it your own! I’d also like to know about any improvements so I can post them here.

Enjoy!