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Apple Offers New Dedicated Podcast App for iOS
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Im another Downcast user who loves it, but Ill at least give this a look.
3rd party apps from small development shops are usually more feature rich, and the developers are more agile, i.e., quicker updates, faster response to users requests for features, bug fixes, etc.
Apple seems to be encroaching on several 3rd party markets: Podcast apps, and I understand iOS 6 will have an offline reader feature not unlike Instapaper (of which Im also a user).
3rd party apps from small development shops are usually more feature rich, and the developers are more agile, i.e., quicker updates, faster response to users requests for features, bug fixes, etc.
Apple seems to be encroaching on several 3rd party markets: Podcast apps, and I understand iOS 6 will have an offline reader feature not unlike Instapaper (of which Im also a user).
bummer, the subscriptions that i have on my mac didn't sync when i launched this app. Also, I'm getting an error message when trying to download video podcasts saying they can't be downloaded at this time. anyone else getting this?
The important part here is for Apple to establish Podcasts as a "big deal"
If people have a better experience finding and consuming podcasts it increases the market for them and eventually people will want more features. Enter the 3rd party to fulfill those features.
If people have a better experience finding and consuming podcasts it increases the market for them and eventually people will want more features. Enter the 3rd party to fulfill those features.
I actually tend to feel the reverse: I think of the iTunes icon for music and movie rentals. I rarely launch it (I tend to buy media from iTunes on my Mac instead) and when I do, Podcasts is a button I almost forget even exists.
Now podcasts will have an icon right on the home screensI wont forget that! It will sit in my Audio folder alongside Pandora and others.
Now... for this to REALLY promote podcasts, the app needs to be discoverable. Hopefully iOS 6 gains a button somewhere (in the iTunes app?) to invite a download of this; if not simply pre-installing it.
If I were a podcaster, I'd be worried. Now users have to download a podcasting app if they want to explore podcasts. It's less likely that people will stumble upon podcasts because they won't be integrated into a native iOS app that comes with the iPhone/iPad.
well then it's coming off my phone. None of the podcasts I listen to are in iTunes.
It's an interesting option, however I have podcasts in my podcast area of the music app that I didn't get from iTunes. (Aka Older episodes of podcasts that are not Downloadable on iTunes anymore) I wonder if the podcasts like that will be synced to the podcast app or the music app.
I like how this App has its store built in. First iBooks, then iTunes U and now this.
Hopefully it's a sign of things to come and Music app will have its own iTunes store built in, as well as Video app.
Hopefully it's a sign of things to come and Music app will have its own iTunes store built in, as well as Video app.
On the iPad music/podcast player the podcast section was hidden inside the "more" menu, so I have to imagine that at least on the iPad this'll greatly improve the discoverability of podcasts.
Starting a podcast on the phone and picking up where you left off on the iPad works great. The 30 second forward button is nice too. I like it much better than the standard Music app.
At first glance -- downloading a few podcasts and monkeying around with the UI -- I still way prefer Downcast:
* Global settings with individual settings for individual podcasts.
* Limitation on number of podcasts it keeps.
* Distinguishes downloading vs. streaming.
* Does a great job syncing multiple devices.
* Better UI.
When Apple moves into a space where third-party apps are already doing a great job, Apple needs to raise the bar. They didn't raise the bar.
* Global settings with individual settings for individual podcasts.
* Limitation on number of podcasts it keeps.
* Distinguishes downloading vs. streaming.
* Does a great job syncing multiple devices.
* Better UI.
When Apple moves into a space where third-party apps are already doing a great job, Apple needs to raise the bar. They didn't raise the bar.
You better believe that the Podcasts app will come standard on future shipping iPhones and iPads.
In all likelihood, Apple is about to blow up iTunes--though, probably not until next year at the earliest. This completes the move in iOS. iTunes is now only music (and ringtones). Video, books, audio, and apps have all been split into their own stores/management apps.
As it should be. I welcome the day when iTunes on Macs as we currently know it is dead. It is an absolute mess and makes no sense from an organizational standpoint (except on Windows), aside from using a popular service to leverage the adoption of other less popular services.
They need to do the same thing to OS X, and then create a new hub app for managing how all of our content is distributed among our iDevices.
It doesn't seem to automatically download anything at all, even with the app open. From what I can see, you have to download each episode that you want individually, the only thing that updates is a list of available episodes. You tap the episode to stream instantly or there's a little download button to store on the device.
EDIT: I am a moron, it does support automatic downloading. Not sure if it works when app is closed though.
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I sure hope so too. They've tried to cram everything including the kitchen sink into iTunes and it became more and more cluttered, slow, and hard to use. So I think it's great that Apple is finally starting to separate out the separate functionalities into their own rightfully separate apps.
Is this using your iCloud account, or your iTunes store account to sync between devices?
Umm, actually I'd argue that this is a big step FORWARD, not back. Problem with the Music app on iOS, especially on anything other than iPad, is you have limited screen real estate to play with. As a result you have just four shortcut links on the bottom of the screen with everything else off in a separate 'more' screen. Yeah, you can put whatever you like down there but how many people actually change from the default? Plus the title of the app, 'Music', suggests that things like audiobooks and podcasts aren't to be found there anyway.
By putting distinct categories in their own app you're effectively using the homescreen as the first 'selection' pane for media. Better still you can completely customise the individual apps around different content without having to constantly change the look and feel of a single all-encompasing app and potentially producing some very confusing user interface design.
If anything having separate apps actually encourages discoverability by users who don't necessarily know what podcasts are or haven't used them before. After all if an app is pre-loaded (and I'm guessing it will be on iOS6) a new user is much more likely to tap it from the homescreen than go diving through menu options in the music app.
I used to use Podcaster and Downcast was a huge improvement. It's also improved on a regular basis, when I was using Podcaster it seemed to have been abandoned for a while.