@trevelyan -

I would say both. I'm in China now and when I'm on the street or out with people, the stuff I ACTUALLY need to use doesn't seem to be in any podcast. I can find 100 podcasts telling me how to converse about the Spring Festival or elephants, but it's not useful when I'm on the street. Asking for directions, ordering food at a restaurant, asking for help, etc. For example, I can say, "qing geo wo mi fan" but that's not really how it works. You usually point at something and say, "zhe ge yi fen"..which is something I have never come across in any podcast. Etc.

Of course I haven't been over the entirety of popup chinese so I'm not critizising it, I'm just sayin :)