I'm doing an application that can play podcasts, but i feel more comfortable if the iPhone default podcast application plays the files, instead of me having to handle them.
When I pass the URL to the sharedApplication object, Safari opens and starts playing it ... but I'd like to skip the user seeing Safari. Is there any way?
The podcasts app does not have a public API. Therefore you cannot get it to play podcasts on your behalf.
Since the podcasts are added to your media library you should be able to find them with a media library query and start background playback easily.