Apple Podcasts App Lets Users 'Follow' New Content Instead of 'Subscribe' in iOS 14.5

[britboyj]

Podcasts needs a major upgrade.

No, it needs to go back to where it was in iOS 12-ish. It's been overthought and downgraded since then because Apple wants to emphasize the podcast discovery aspect of their own app versus paid ads within podcasts. Just like they want to de-emphasize apps being discovered through ads with ATT/SKAN.

Except while they've continued to generally make the App Store experience better (since it only serves as discovery and storefront, not the actual thing you use to interact with installed apps) they've continued to make actually listening to your podcasts more and more of pain in the butt.

 

[Ho Tai]

Good move. I spent a year not subscribing to anything thinking it meant "pay". Eventually figured it out. I guess I wasn't the only one.

 

[1258186]

I’m not convinced sufficient numbers of people will be willing to pay for Podcasts to make any subscription service viable.

 

[AVEGA]

I hope they fix more than just that, such as a the overall navigation of the app which I find to be a nightmare. Trying to re-listen to an already heard episode means an enormous scroll to the bottom of the podcast list to both “Previously Played” and “See All Episodes” - why is this so hidden and far away?

Secondly, searching in the podcasts app is a travesty. Keywords are clearly in the description or title and STILL the search engine doesn’t show the correct results.

Podcasts needs a major upgrade.

Agree 100%. Hopefully in iOS 15 they really give the podcasts app the love that it needs. Divorcing it from system updates to just a regular app like iMovie can be very beneficial so they can update podcasts app more frequently as needed instead of jamming into iOS updates. Polish and general quality of life improvements will make paying for podcasts worth while. Currently it’s good enough when it should be great.

 

[AJACs3]

Podcast’s ‘subscribe’ in this new world of subscriptions can be misconstrued to mean payment. ‘Follow’ is universally known as the generic social media term, which usually doesn’t incur payment.

It’s a logical change

Except for the largest shared video platform in the world uses “subscribe and hit the bell for notifications”

 

[RedGT]

I’d like an EQ setting, surely with all the podcasts seeming to be recorded remotely rather than in a studio....sometimes the audio needs tweaking to the listeners preference.

 

[Philip_S]

I’m not convinced sufficient numbers of people will be willing to pay for Podcasts to make any subscription service viable.

They've already got the billing infrastructure so it would probably be pretty minimal work to provide something comparable to Patreon, though I bet apple's content standards wouldn't allow it to be a competitor to OnlyFans etc.