Podcast Playlists? Reverting to Music player for podcasts?

[Wolfpup]

iTunes 11.1.1 is at least partially fixed. I'm seeing some podcast feeds screw up, but it's POSSIBLE that's not iTunes and just coincidentally some of the feeds are broken at the same time iTunes was updated, since most seem to work now...

Anyway one of the other things I hate about this update is iOS 7 doesn't seem to let you use podcasts through the music player? I abhor the "podcasts" program. It's not as bad as it was when it was introduced a year or two ago (i.e. not completely unusable) but it still seems weird and buggy.

In iOS 6 you could just remove "podcasts" and they'd revert to working through "Music", which actually works (and works well).

Any way I'm not seeing to restore that functionality to Music?

Also, is it possible to do playlists anymore with podcasts? On iOS 6 (without "podcats"), on actual non-iOS iPods, and in iTunes, it's easy to add podcasts to playlists. I can still do that in iTunes, and even drag the playlist to my iPhone. The iPhone even seemed to start playing from the playlist over bluetooth in my car.

But...it's all screwed up. You can't even SEE that playlist anywhere on the phone, that I can tell. Podcast positions aren't getting updated when I do that either.

The list doesn't show up in "Podcasts" or in "Music", even though iTunes says it's there, and you can't add podcasts to a playlist from "Music".

Soooo yeah this is all kind of a mess compared to iOS 6...?

 

[Zcott]

If you're serious about podcasts it's worth investing in a really good featured podcast client.

 

[TJ61]

If you're serious about podcasts it's worth investing in a really good featured podcast client.

I'd say if you listen to podcasts at all, you should get a 3rd party app.

I've been happy with Downcast since I got it a couple years back. I don't have any experience with others.

 

[Wolfpup]

If you're serious about podcasts it's worth investing in a really good featured podcast client.

I'd say if you listen to podcasts at all, you should get a 3rd party app.

I've been happy with Downcast since I got it a couple years back. I don't have any experience with others.

None of them would remotely work for me. I want something that lets me manage everything on my PC and syncs perfectly to my other devices over USB. That iOS/iTunes has worked so well since 2005 is the entire reason I use iOS and not a much cheaper Windows or Android phone.

 

[panopticblue]

I hate this problem and don't understand why apple is forcing the podcast app on us. I have done the same, since 2008. I create a playlist on a daily basis full of podcasts and sync it to my phone. I would then open the playlist from the music app. ios7 does not allow this. I don't know why they had to separate the "ipod" app into two apps.

Something else that doesn't make sense is that audiobooks still play from the music app. An audiobook is as much music as a podcast is, so why not just let me play my podcasts through the music app too?

Worse, now I have to have an extra app on my home screen. I used to keep the ipod (now music) app on my dock because I use my iphone for both music and podcasts quite frequently. Now I have both podcasts and music on my dock which is ridiculous.

 

[ColdCase]

I like to listen to ~ 8 different podcasts on whatever device I happen to have handy, iPhone, iPad, rMBP... sometimes iPod and its nice to have them all in sync. That still seems to works well.

The thing that I haven't figured out with iOS7 is the play all from the oldest function. With the old playlist method all the podcasts would play oldest to newest, but with iOS7 you can't seem to combine all of them into one playlist. I have to pick individual podcast. If there are several cued up for that podcast, it will play them oldest to newest.

I stream to the car radio on long drives and not having to futz with the iPhone to cycle through the casts while driving is a feature I'd like to figure out. I want it to play all 20 entries in the 8 different podcasts in sequence.

 

[Wolfpup]

I forgot to note-I found the playlists...they're there, sort of.

The "My Stations" button on the bottom is hiding an "iTunes Playlists" selection that has them.

It's clunky, like everything else about 11.1.1 and "Podcasts", but better than nothing.

I really just want iTunes 11's podcast behavior back, and the ability to use them WITHOUT the horrible "podcasts" program again.

panopticblue, great point about audiobooks. Inexplicable that they let us use them like normal in 'Music' but don't let us use podcasts!

 

[roobieroo]

I forgot to note-I found the playlists...they're there, sort of.

The "My Stations" button on the bottom is hiding an "iTunes Playlists" selection that has them.

Thank you so much for posting this! I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to use playlists with iOS 7 and the podcast app anymore so this is at least a workaround.