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The audacity of Apple Podcasts

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Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#31

Post by timerol »

moogleii wrote: post #22
dabernathy89 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This service doesn't give podcast hosts a way to retrieve their own material. It doesn't inform them that they'll be completely locked into Apple's service. If creators were aware of this upfront, then sure, I'd say "just don't use it" too.

I'm a bit out of the loop but wouldn't hosts have the original source material that they uploaded? Similar to how users have the source images/videos to whatever they upload to TikTok and Instagram? I suspect neither offer an export either. Additionally, the author complains that an Apple Podcast user has to go through the app (and all its restrictions), but again, not that different from Instagram posts. As a user,…

It's perfectly reasonable for a user to pay a big company for hosting, and then delete their local copies, since they paid for hosting. And then assume that, because their data is publicly available, that they'll be able to download that information.

Getting your photos off of Instagram is easy, according to the top 10 search results for "Instagram photo downloader". But even then, the distinction that you're not paying Instagram for hosting is notable.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#32

Post by RC_ITR »

karaterobot wrote: post #20
crazygringo wrote: post #15

> You could sign up to allow Apple to host your show and its audio (for a cool $20/year). In exchange, you could charge a subscription fee to your listeners... If you host your show with Apple, the only listeners you can have are folks with the Apple Podcasts app... The audio will be protected with DRM. The author presents this as "audacity" and bad... but doesn't it make perfect sense? If you're charging a subscript…

> Apple isn't taking away self-hosted RSS podcast feeds. It's presenting a separate paid subscription experience within its Podcasts app. No "audacity" about it. If you don't want that as a creator, don't use it. It sounded to me like the audacious part was that they don't make it clear that, once you sign up for this service, your users cannot get your podcast in any other way than using Apple Podcasts, and you will…

>they say it will have DRM

I confused what possible definition of 'Digital Rights Management' could entail 'anyone can freely rip your files.'

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#33

Post by bastawhiz »

crazygringo wrote: post #19
dabernathy89 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This service doesn't give podcast hosts a way to retrieve their own material. It doesn't inform them that they'll be completely locked into Apple's service. If creators were aware of this upfront, then sure, I'd say "just don't use it" too.

Why would there be any expectation that a podcast distribution service should also serve as a private file archive? And why would podcast hosts even need to retrieve their own material? If there are podcast hosts who don't hold onto their original audio files they had before uploading them, then what are they thinking? That's like sending a project to a client and then deleting your own copy of it. I understand that…

> It really shouldn't be too hard for a podcaster to just re-upload their original audio files and descriptions to a new service. Nobody's "locked in" to anything here as far as I can tell.

If you reupload your audio to a new hosting service, there's no way to have your listeners move to the new service. The listeners need to physically unsubscribe and resubscribe with a new feed. This is a feature of _every single podcast hosting service_ with the exception of Apple.

If I bought a bunch of apps on my Samsung phone, and then I wanted to switch to an LG phone, but I couldn't transfer my apps or data—despite the phone running the same OS—that's lock-in. If "having to start over if you want to leave" isn't lock-in, I'm not sure what is. It's an artificial limitation that Apple deliberately put in place and didn't make clear to their customers.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#34

Post by howinteresting »

bastawhiz wrote: post #29
moogleii wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit out of the loop but wouldn't hosts have the original source material that they uploaded? Similar to how users have the source images/videos to whatever they upload to TikTok and Instagram? I suspect neither offer an export either. Additionally, the author complains that an Apple Podcast user has to go through the app (and all its restrictions), but again, not that different from Instagram posts. As a user,…

Author here. > wouldn't hosts have the original source material that they uploaded As far as I'm aware, Apple never resurfaces the audio after it's uploaded, even in your dashboard. Even if they did, making someone manually download and reupload every asset for potentially hundreds of episodes is sadistic. Moreover, you physically can't leave, because your listeners won't follow you to your new hosting service. > The…

This is all Apple bringing their usual dirty tactics into an ecosystem that has historically been open. Everything Apple does is designed to keep you buying Apple products and services forever.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#35

Post by tokamak-teapot »

voytec wrote: post #28

I remember having an iMac with 3TB hard disk on which I stored all my CDs ripped in an lossless format. iTunes had an option to stream the library to local network and since this iMac was on 24/7, this was a perfect solution for me to have an audio-NAS and also kind-of remote streaming when I was connecting via VPN to my home network. Than there came Tim Cook's "upgrades": OS X was renamed to macOS, iTunes to Music,…

Apple seem to believe what you’re talking about is supported via Home Sharing [1]. I have attempted to get this to work with a little success but I wonder if it was too little too late for you?

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202190

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#37

Post by joeconway »

jxdxbx wrote: post #13

Apple Podcasts does not have a silence-trimming feature, which is reason enough to not use it. It would be nice if you could have a single podcast RSS backend with multiple client apps, like you can with text RSS.

Almost every podcast client has OPML export there is no need for a single backend to host that. Such a service would like end up awful, like Feedly

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#38

Post by cool_dude85 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #32
karaterobot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple isn't taking away self-hosted RSS podcast feeds. It's presenting a separate paid subscription experience within its Podcasts app. No "audacity" about it. If you don't want that as a creator, don't use it. It sounded to me like the audacious part was that they don't make it clear that, once you sign up for this service, your users cannot get your podcast in any other way than using Apple Podcasts, and you will…

>they say it will have DRM I confused what possible definition of 'Digital Rights Management' could entail 'anyone can freely rip your files.'

How about 'nobody can freely rip my subscriber only files' but free files are free to be ripped? Seems like a reasonable interpretation to me. Even more reasonably, I might expect that I can freely rip my files regardless of DRM.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#39

Post by arwhatever »

paulette449 wrote: post #14

I listen to hours of podcasts each day (dog-walking, walking, running etc) and am fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem, but the Apple Podcast app is a turkey. Shallow feature set, bugs that never get fixed and an environment that doesn't evolve. It's software that can only be developed by a company that hates its user base. Ugh. I've been using and loving iCatcher for years [1]. [1] - https://joeisanerd.com

I’ve used the Apple podcasts app to pre-download content for offline listening, only to drive out to the middle of nowhere with no data service only to have the app refuse to load.

It would be much less aggravating to have an app which crashes on launch and never gives the appearance of doing anything, whatsoever.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#40

Post by voytec »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #35
voytec wrote: post #28

I remember having an iMac with 3TB hard disk on which I stored all my CDs ripped in an lossless format. iTunes had an option to stream the library to local network and since this iMac was on 24/7, this was a perfect solution for me to have an audio-NAS and also kind-of remote streaming when I was connecting via VPN to my home network. Than there came Tim Cook's "upgrades": OS X was renamed to macOS, iTunes to Music,…

Apple seem to believe what you’re talking about is supported via Home Sharing [1]. I have attempted to get this to work with a little success but I wonder if it was too little too late for you? [1] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202190

Too late. I have called Apple's support when they did this and they told me that there was no way to still use such functionality without paying for online Apple Music. They would serve me copies of some of my previously LAN-shared music from the internet.

For some reasons, which I don't recall, it was supposed to be some - not all - music from my original CDs, ripped by me under law allowing to have digital copies of owned audio CDs.

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