While I’ve talked about Apple’s Podcasts app before, I’ve only largely talked about the implications of it being available on the App Store, what it does well, and how it’s not going to totally supplant feature rich podcatchers and their developers who want to continue improving upon the actual medium of podcasting itself. What I didn’t talk about was performance, but at the time it felt no different than my usual experience with the App Store or iTunes apps.

Podcasts 1.0.1 is a significant performance improvement for Apple’s podcatcher. While the Podcast catalogue still feels a little sluggish here or there, overall navigating the catalogue, browsing the library, and starting a podcast stream feels much snappier than before.

Much like a red badge on an app icon, Podcast artwork will display a blue badge indicating the number of unplayed episodes for your subscriptions. Also improved is how Apple handles missing for missing artwork in top stations — they now display the podcast title in its place. Apple has also fixed playback speed, keeping it persistent when a new episode plays.

Apple’s Podcasts 1.0.1 is a solid update, addressing small issues and improving how the app feels when browsing and playing podcasts. You can download Podcasts from the App Store.