iOS 14.6 Beta Brings Tweaks to Podcasts App Following Complaints

[MacRumors]

Apple has added a number of features to its Podcasts app in the third beta of iOS 14.6, seemingly in an attempt to address some of the useability problems introduced in iOS 14.5.

MacRumors contributor Steve Moser spotted the Podcasts app changes in iOS 14.6 beta 3 and its source code, which include new features for marking all episodes as played, removing downloads, and recovering episodes.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1391858655436414978

iOS 14.5 redesigned the Podcasts library so that all episodes of a show are now displayed by default, which gave the impression to some users that hundreds of episodes stretching back years had been added to their libraries.

It is no longer possible to delete or remove individual episodes from the library in iOS 14.5, leaving users with the only option of selecting "Hide Played Episodes" and then manually marking every unwanted episode as played individually, one by one.

To make matters worse, users reported that many old episodes that had been listened to were not being marked as played correctly, making the new episodes view troublesome even where the "Hide Played Episodes" option in Settings had been enabled.

Apple's new "Mark All As Played" or "Mark All As Unplayed" options for shows in iOS 14.6 will help users deal with the multitude of episodes now seemingly lingering in libraries, and will make it possible to hide old episodes from view when used with the "Hide Played Episodes" option.

In spite of this improvement, users will still have to mark every episode of a podcast that they do not want to listen to as played in order to remove it from view. This is a particular nuisance when listening to podcast episodes in "oldest to newest" order. In addition, there is no longer the option to only retain a certain number of unplayed episodes of a show in the library.

In the iOS 14.6 beta, Apple also added the ability to remove all downloads in a single action, rather than obliging users to do this individually for each desired episode. This may also help some users that said the Podcasts app in iOS 14.5 was hemorrhaging mobile data by downloading all of the episodes that have now been moved directly into libraries.

The other new feature in the Podcasts app relates to recovering episodes in the Library. There are cautions in iOS 14.6 for removing recovered episodes, which suggests, although it was not visible within the code, that there may be an option to recover episodes. It is also unknown whether this feature is macOS-only.

It is not clear what exact function this serves, but it is reasonable to speculate that it relates to recovering episodes of shows, presumably ones that were not subscribed to, that were added to the library prior to iOS 14.5. These episodes are currently inaccessible under the design of the Podcasts app in iOS 14.5 due to the changes to the way the library works.

Given the raft of criticisms about the redesign of Apple's Podcasts app in iOS 14.5, it is difficult to not see these changes as a purposeful attempt to go some way to rectify these problems. Even so, there still seems to be more work to do on the Podcasts app to fully address users' complaints about bugs and sorting episodes in the library.

Article Link: iOS 14.6 Beta Brings Tweaks to Podcasts App Following Complaints

 

[mansplains]

The changes made to the Podcasts app almost made me switch to a third-party service, but at least Apple's actually reconsidering some. It blows my mind how hard it is for their design team to work something as simple as a library viewer out without breaking it.

 

[chenks]

all i need to do is show the correct next unplayed episode based on the release date.
it seems the app isn't capable of this simply basic task.

 

[Steve121178]

MacRumors contributor Steve Moser spotted the Podcasts app changes in iOS 14.6 beta 3 and its source code, which include new features for marking all episodes as played

Finally.

 

[somnolentsurfer]

Will it sort out syncing between devices?

 

[sully54]

The podcast app in 14.5 is terrible. Many of the changes are so illogical, it’s like the people who made these changes have never listened to a single podcast.

 

[jamcgahey]

Did I miss something in the article? Are they bringing back the possibility to simply delete episodes that you don't want to listen to but also don't want to necessarily mark as played?

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Unfortunately, Apple’s software has been this way for about 6 or 7 years. It no longer “just works”. Instead, operating systems are constantly redesigned every year and updates such as this are rushed.

I miss the Apple of old.

 

[Okasian]

Although I’ve gone back to Overcast, I’ll be staying on 14.4.2 for a while I reckon.

 

[contacos]

One thing I absolutely hate about iOS is the lack of „mark all“ buttons in general. I don’t understand why Apple is so against those. Deleting attached photos on Messages is a pain in the ass too

 

[tonywalker23]

I just wish I could sort a station by episode length. Then, I could listen to shows in order of shortest to longest. I could knock out the quick 2-5 min episodes on my way to work and then listen to the longer ones as the day unfolds.

 

[jamie.shaw]

Does this bring global settings back? Maybe I'm just walking over it, but I can toggle the settings per podcast, but the global settings have been removed completely (but still apply…)

 

[darngooddesign]

I just want to know if they fixed a longstanding visual bug.

 

[BWhaler]

Something is profoundly wrong with the teams who make Apple’’s media apps. The. Music app is even more flawed and buggy. Latency to the cloud is behind all competitors. I am not saying the people are bad, just the team dynamic. Apple needs a reboot there.

Apple can’t build a services Empire without great software to support it.

 

[Remy149]

Did I miss something in the article? Are they bringing back the possibility to simply delete episodes that you don't want to listen to but also don't want to necessarily mark as played?

It’s always been there just swipe from the right on the episode you want to delete in downloads

 

[JM]

Crappy podcast update also downloaded entire shows libraries going back months. My usage jumped up something ridiculous like 13 GB.

It had unchecked the "limit downloads to most recent" so it there was no limit on how many downloads happened.

I had to go into settings and recheck all the show's "limit downloads" for each followed show.

ANNOYING.

 

[Take Flight]

Library > latest episodes still seems to work ok. That is literally the only interface that makes sense for me.

I just want to see a list of the latest episodes of podcasts I follow and that’s it. Can’t imagine I’m alone on that.

The listen now/up next view has never made a lick of sense.

 

[Thunderstrike76]

Anyone having issues with podcast that typically get uploaded mid or late day not appearing till the next day? Example Jason Snells podcast Upgrade is usually uploaded very late in the afternoon. Before the update it would appear when available every Monday. Now it’s not available till Tuesday morning. Same for Macbreak Weekly. Normally available Tuesday night but now not available till Wednesday morning. There use to be a setting that would continuously refresh for new episodes in the background but now it’s gone.

 

[ouimetnick]

Why Apple has a history of taking great or functional apps, ruining them and then sometimes slowly fixing it to be like the old version is beyond me.
They’ve ruined iMovie in 2008, they’ve ruined iWork a few years ago, Music and TV (replaced movies) apps on iOS are terrible if you only sync content.

Why did they have to destroy a working app that people had grown accustomed to?

 

[sully54]

Something is profoundly wrong with the teams who make Apple’’s media apps. The. Music app is even more flawed and buggy. Latency to the cloud is behind all competitors. I am not saying the people are bad, just the team dynamic. Apple needs a reboot there.

Apple can’t build a services Empire without great software to support it.

This.

I almost threw my phone at the wall after discovering that Apple has made a backward change in the Music app. Before 14.5, you could swipe left on a song in a playlist to remove it from the playlist but not delete it from the library. Now, swiping left deletes the song from your library and to get the same functionality as before, I now need to do 5 taps instead of two.

So backwards.

 

[Spaceboy88]

Anyone having issues with podcast that typically get uploaded mid or late day not appearing till the next day? Example Jason Snells podcast Upgrade is usually uploaded very late in the afternoon. Before the update it would appear when available every Monday. Now it’s not available till Tuesday morning. Same for Macbreak Weekly. Normally available Tuesday night but now not available till Wednesday morning. There use to be a setting that would continuously refresh for new episodes in the background but now it’s gone.

YES. This is driving me nuts. Pivot with Kara Swisher comes out Tues and Fri mornings, and Overcast and Pocketcasts both have it but Apple still isn't showing it yet. They both pull from the same podcast database owned by Apple I thought. This is infuriating.

 

[KrazyBear15]

How is there still not a 1.2x play back speed? It's the sole reason I switched to Spotify for Podcasts. 1.5x is too fast but 1.2x is just fast enough to keep things moving but also not mushed together. Cuts 20% off the listening time!

 

[ThisBougieLife]

How is there still not a 1.2x play back speed? It's the sole reason I switched to Spotify for Podcasts. 1.5x is too fast but 1.2x is just fast enough to keep things moving but also not mushed together. Cuts 20% off the listening time!

Agreed. Not sure why they won’t add this. 1.5x is too fast, but 1.25x is perfect for very long podcast episodes and I use it frequently on Overcast.

 

[BMox81]

Library > latest episodes still seems to work ok. That is literally the only interface that makes sense for me.

I just want to see a list of the latest episodes of podcasts I follow and that’s it. Can’t imagine I’m alone on that.

The listen now/up next view has never made a lick of sense.

This and Shows are the only two tabs I use and work with no issues as well.

 

[_Spinn_]

I still prefer to stick with iCatcher! I love how configurable it is and its support for multiple playlists.