Apple Updates Podcasts iOS App With Custom Stations, Playlists, and iCloud Syncing

BFG86 · Mar 22, 2013

Hopefully they get around to updating the podcast part of itunes next. Still have to create a smart playlist to play podcasts in a row and you can't change the sort and play order like you can in the podcast app.

Another new thing which I just discovered. The podcast app now only updates with rhe most recent episode. so if a pdocast adds multiple podcasts since you last listened you have to make an extra step to add what apple is calling old episodes and add them to your podcast list

Soundhound · Mar 22, 2013

What's the difference between adding a 'Station' and subscribing to a Podcast? I am confused.

gloryunited · Mar 22, 2013

Soundhound said:
What's the difference between adding a 'Station' and subscribing to a Podcast? I am confused.

A radio "station" includes a set of "shows" (podcasts), combining with the settings inside a station it's like an iTunes smart playlist for podcasts if you will.

marc11 · Mar 22, 2013

Irishman said:
I noticed Safari seems snappier.

Couldn't resist!

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What should they have done?

It should not have brought back all my played podcasts. They were gone from the old version, so why did the update bring them all back as unplayed? Yeah no big deal, took 5 mins to clean it up, but any sort of QA would have found this and prevented it from happening.

aaronvan · Mar 22, 2013

The Podcast app keeps getting worse and worse (although abandoning that reel to reel was wise). Is there a decent 3rd party app out there?

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vodouman said:
No longer supports 3X speed playback.

No 30 sec FF either. This thing sucks.

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M-O said:
dang it!!! they cut the time on my andy ihnatko button in half!!! now i have to press it twice as much.

lol, I call it the Steve Gibson button.

Irishman · Mar 22, 2013

marc11 said:
It should not have brought back all my played podcasts. They were gone from the old version, so why did the update bring them all back as unplayed? Yeah no big deal, took 5 mins to clean it up, but any sort of QA would have found this and prevented it from happening.

I'm not a coder. I don't know if it would or not. I'm just willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

gloryunited · Mar 23, 2013

marc11 said:
It should not have brought back all my played podcasts. They were gone from the old version, so why did the update bring them all back as unplayed? Yeah no big deal, took 5 mins to clean it up, but any sort of QA would have found this and prevented it from happening.

Yep, I have a big 60 on the badge of the icon after update. And that actually happens EVERY TIME after update.

RandySK · Mar 23, 2013

Can't Play All Titles

They eliminated the 'unplayed' list. If you try to make a new one, it lists the subscribed programs as groups, not individual podcasts. Now, there is no way to play through all your podcasts in date order. What a downgrade.

TEG · Mar 23, 2013

Stiivi said:
Looks nice, however still does not seem to have an interface for listing podcast chapters.

Music app has the podcast chapter support. The only way to listen to The Economist ~8 hour long podcasts is through Music app with Podcasts app NOT installed. If Podcast app is installed, then podcasts disappear from the Music app.

Wait, are you telling me that if I uninstall the Podcast App, I can go back to a fully functional podcast experience?

TEG

therockyroad · Mar 23, 2013

Swift said:
It's the fact that the tape recorder didn't really do anything but turn. So get rid of it.

You might not have noticed that the tape stock on the reels slowly moved from one reel to the other, and ran out right at the end no matter how long the podcast was? I thought that was quite clever, if unnecessary.

therockyroad · Mar 23, 2013

Disappointed they still haven't added chapter control. If I watch a video podcast in the Videos app I can skip around by chapter. Podcast app should have this.

ScottC7 · Mar 24, 2013

I really want to like and use this app, but as far as I can tell, it still has two major issues:

First, it doesn't appear to do any syncing whatsoever with iTunes on my MacBook. I set up Podcasts on my iPad, and then opened the app on my iPhone and everything sync'ed as it should. However, when I opened iTunes on my MBP, iTunes didn't sync anything. That makes no sense to me.

Equally confounding, when I tried to play a podcast on my iPhone in the car today, the app informed me that I would have to enable cellular in order to stream the app. It's supposed to already have downloaded the podcasts, isn't it? Isn't that the point? Is there an option I have to enable, in order to get Podcasts to auto-download when on a Wi-Fi network? I did turn off the "download via Cellular" option but I didn't see any option for streaming vs. downloading. And I'm aware of the "Auto Downloads" option and have it set to "All"

Without a fix to the latter and preferably, also to the former, I will probably have to stick with Downcast. But I'd love to use Podcasts so that all of my podcasts would sync with my MBP. I do occasionally listen to podcasts on the Mac.

APlotdevice · Mar 24, 2013

ScottC7 said:
Equally confounding, when I tried to play a podcast on my iPhone in the car today, the app informed me that I would have to enable cellular in order to stream the app. It's supposed to already have downloaded the podcasts, isn't it? Isn't that the point? Is there an option I have to enable, in order to get Podcasts to auto-download when on a Wi-Fi network? I did turn off the "download via Cellular" option but I didn't see any option for streaming vs. downloading. And I'm aware of the "Auto Downloads" option and have it set to "All".

Where did you set auto-download? If you did it within settings, then that will only apply to new podcasts (ie "default settings"). For existing podcasts you may need to go into the subscription, hit the settings button at the top, and reconfigure auto-download from there.

ndalum · Mar 24, 2013

newagemac said:
Yep, it streams from iCloud now. You can choose whether to download to the device or stream and can auto download per subscription if you want. And your subscriptions are synced across devices in the background using iCloud. Pretty cool.

Edit: iCloud also now syncs your play position. You can start listening to a podcast on your iPhone then pick up right where you left off in iTunes on your Mac. Then switch to the iPad and start playing exactly where you last paused it from iTunes too. Awesome.

How did you get it to sync to itunes on the mac? mine does not do it but the ipad and iphone sync

ndalum · Mar 24, 2013

JetLaw said:
While I appreciate all the bickering about skeuomorphic design, why is nobody pointing out the fact that this update does NOT fix syncing with the Mac using iCloud? It syncs only between iOS devices - just like the last version did; so either MacRumors headline is wrong, or Apple screwed up, and based on my reading of the release notes, MacRumors is wrong and iCloud syncing went unchanged in this update.

I agree. Why is this not being answered? Does suncing work for some people??

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not Addressed:

Cannot play audio in background when using other apps ( for video podcasts)
Cannot log into subscribed podcasts (Rush Limbaugh)

Downcast can do these

Does not sync to itunes on mac

ScottC7 · Mar 25, 2013

APlotdevice said:
Where did you set auto-download? If you did it within settings, then that will only apply to new podcasts (ie "default settings"). For existing podcasts you may need to go into the subscription, hit the settings button at the top, and reconfigure auto-download from there.

Thanks for the reply! I do have Auto-Download set to "All" in the Podcast settings too, and yet it still wanted me to enable cellular service to stream the podcast.

newagemac · Mar 25, 2013

ndalum said:
How did you get it to sync to itunes on the mac? mine does not do it but the ipad and iphone sync

I think you have to be using iTunes 11. That's when Apple fully integrated iCloud syncing features.

ndalum · Mar 26, 2013

newagemac said:
I think you have to be using iTunes 11. That's when Apple fully integrated iCloud syncing features.

I have iTunes 11

brianus · Mar 26, 2013

ndalum said:
I agree. Why is this not being answered? Does suncing work for some people??

The iCloud<->iTunes sync is practically nonexistent, though to be honest, the sync between iOS devices isn't that great either. I've found it takes up to a minute (on hi-speed wifi) to update the "Unplayed" station on both my iPad and iPhone, and even then, certain info like play position doesn't always transfer over correctly. It seems to update in stages - first updating individual podcast feeds, then checking iCloud to see which ones have been listened to on other devices. So you get a buttload of unplayed podcasts at first, then a little while later it gets whittled down.

On iTunes, there appears to be limited iTunes->iCloud syncing, but absolutely no iCloud->iTunes information transfer. I've actually had some success playing a podcast in iTunes 11.0.2, pausing, then having the iOS device pick up the play position without manually syncing. However, played/unplayed status does not sync at all (in either direction), which is extremely counterintuitive. Also, iTunes lacks the "Stations" feature (I guess you could create Smart Playlists which would function similarly, but you'd have to sync them manually). Hopefully both of these issues will be addressed in a future update.

not Addressed:
Cannot play audio in background when using other apps ( for video podcasts)

Not sure what you mean..? Admittedly I haven't tried this since Podcasts 1.2 was released, but in previous versions, I was always able to play video podcasts in the background as audio-only while browsing other apps, or just with the screen off and the phone in my pocket. Has this changed?

One bug I have noticed in 1.2 is one that had originally debuted with version 1.0 of the app last summer, but was quashed a few months later. The "forgets playback speed" bug has resurfaced!! ARGH. If I say I want 1.5x speed, STAY AT 1.5X UNTIL I SAY OTHERWISE!

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newagemac said:
I think you have to be using iTunes 11. That's when Apple fully integrated iCloud syncing features.

Well, that's when they said they integrated iCloud syncing, but yeah, not really. True integration means I've got the same number of unplayed podcasts on iTunes 11.0.2 as I do on my iPhone and iPad, with the same play positions. In reality: not so much.

jacollins · Mar 27, 2013

Stiivi said:
Looks nice, however still does not seem to have an interface for listing podcast chapters.

Music app has the podcast chapter support. The only way to listen to The Economist ~8 hour long podcasts is through Music app with Podcasts app NOT installed. If Podcast app is installed, then podcasts disappear from the Music app.

Deleted the Podcast App and it's now pretty much back to the original way, that I liked! Yay. I get lyric/podcast notes back now. I get the podcast order I expect. I get things working the way I'm used to. All this time suffering with that piece of crud app and I could have been happy with the way it worked originally...

Thanks for the info!

Uzantonomomia · Apr 5, 2013

Stiivi said:
Looks nice, however still does not seem to have an interface for listing podcast chapters.

Music app has the podcast chapter support. The only way to listen to The Economist ~8 hour long podcasts is through Music app with Podcasts app NOT installed. If Podcast app is installed, then podcasts disappear from the Music app.

Actually version 1.2 of the Podcasts app has chapter support, but for some reason it doesn't work with the chapters in the Economist podcast. All my other podcasts display chapters, but not the Economist one. I don't know if the problem is the file encoding from the Economist, or the length/size of the podcast, or something else. For some reason, chapters take a couple of seconds to display after the podcast starts playing -- almost as if the app has to speed through the data identifying all the chapters -- and I wonder if the Economist podcast file is too big or has too many chapters.

Apple Updates Podcasts iOS App With Custom Stations, Playlists, and iCloud Syncing

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