I want to play news every 30 mins (on the hour and half hour approx) and also repeat other features at predictable times too (e.g. at :15 and :45 etc).

The existing version can't do it - the Interval playlists don't permit a fixed start time and Scheduled playlists have a minimum repeat of daily (so no good for news, lol).  
Will the new version be able to do this?  If so, when is it out?

It'd be nice if there were one playlist type which had all the different scheduling parameters accesible together.