Hasta La Gadget!

Incontrovertibly, This American Life is one of the most popular radio programs in the United States. And its iPhone app, which delivers unlimited access to the show’s entire archive, is sure to please fans.

The $3 app can stream every This American Life episode all the way back to 1995. That’s a sweet deal, because each archived episode normally costs a buck apiece to download through iTunes. And if you do wish to store an episode in your audio library, you can still choose to buy it for a dollar through the app.

Ira Glass has churned out a heck of a lot of content in his 15 years hosting the show, so the main challenge is going to be remembering and finding the episode you’re in the mood for. Fortunately the app includes the ability to search not just by keyword, but also by contributor. So if you’re looking for that episode where John Hodgman speaks, for example, you can look up his name to find the episode easily.

The iPhone app also offers the option to listen to a free live stream of the latest episode as it’s being aired by WBEZ. You can even enable push notifications to remind you when an episode is about to air.

As for the This American Life TV show, you can’t watch entire episodes, but you can view sample clips. (We’re sure most people are going to want the app for the audio anyway.)

The biggest drag about the app is it can’t run in the background, because Apple won’t allow background processing for third-party apps. That means you must close the This American Life app and interrupt listening whenever you need to do something else with your iPhone like check your e-mail. This app actually inspired me to download the free “Backgrounder” app for jailbroken (i.e. hacked) iPhones through the underground Cydia app store. That allows apps to run in the background — but it’s worth noting that if you leave background processing on, you kill your battery pretty fast.

The This American Life iPhone app is available for download through the iTunes App Store.

A hat tip to Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica, whose review of this app brought it to my attention.

This American Life Download Link [iTunes]

See Also:

• iPhone App Enables Dogs to Be Emo on Twitter
• Wired’s 20 Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009
• The Top iPhone Apps of 2009: Apple’s Picks and Yours