Rationalising? Nope, sorry. This is something I genuinely believe after a decade+ of creating and supporting bespoke software for non-technical people to use. The more you can simplify things the more likely they are to discover features for themselves. It's an approach that's clearly visible throughout iOS, especially on the iPhone. Apps tend to do one main task and that's it. Heck they've had Music and Video split for a long time now so this isn't really anything new at all.
You're talking about integration and finding 'creative ways' to do that... this is EXACTLY what Apple just did! They are approaching this from the point of view (rightly IMO although that is of course just my opinion) that the homescreen is the first level of any application. They've effectively moved Podcasts two levels up and allowing users to find it far more easily than the old location in the 'more' menu within music. Hell, if you want to group it with music put it in a folder, Podcasts are no further away in terms of taps than they would be on one of the four shortcut options within the music app itself!
Ultimately, and a quick read through this thread tends to support this theory, I'd expect the geeks to not like this change as they are used to information dense software that they can customise and tweak to their precise needs. That's fine, nothing wrong with that at all, but they're not the primary audience for this change. That's the vast number of non-technical users on iOS and I suspect that they will ultimately benefit from this change.
You are missing my point though. Apple has around 20 apps of their own, plus another 5-6 paid ones to buy that most users will (iwork, imovie etc.), that's 26 apps for a user to pick from, add to that another 50 apps at the very least each user will have on their ipad (don't make go over them
I am sure you 'd agree another 50 apps is the minimum almost all will have) . Now podcasts aren't a really established medium, ok for some of us they 've been around so long we know, love and use them, but I am talking about most people. What's easier?
To make a well designed (and not the crap that's currently the music app), and I mean well designed in every sense, forward looking with some of the great stylings app store apps have that are inventive, ipod app including podcasts and audiobooks so the user get acquainted with them, and reminds themselves that there is such a thing as podcasts most everytime they go to ipod/itunes or make a separate one to get lost amongst the tons of apps each one uses?
To me the answer simple a separate podcast app will get be put by most people in an "apple" titled folder and never be used by anyone not already into podcasts, some might go, hmmm, what's that? I might check it out later, and never end up using it.
Splitting things up is not the point, there's no point to have an itunes u app, a podcast one, a vid one, a music one (well music one could be alone), an audiobook one, then a notes app, a reminders, a contacts, a calendar... The point is to integrate them well in the os. Apple just splits them out into deadly uninspired in looks single apps and thinks they have solved their problem.
Back when there was itunes on the ipad, I used to go there, and say, oh lets check some of my itunes u for something interesting, maybe a podcast, an audiobook. Now I have to go to 3-4 separate apps to do that, and for what? What's the point of that?
