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The audacity of Apple Podcasts

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Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#241

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

MBCook wrote: post #170
tomxor wrote: post #102

> That’s right: if you host your show with Apple, the only listeners you can have are folks with the Apple Podcasts app. This feels like an absolutely wild choice from a product perspective; it’s the mindset of a company who still thinks that they have dominance over the podcasting world. It’s ludicrous to assume that it’s a good thing for listeners to have to have specific hardware in order to listen to a podcast. I…

Apple has controlled the podcast industry through the iTunes podcast directory since day one. They’ve been benevolent and haven’t cracked down on things. They let basically any podcast in for free. They let 3rd party clients use their directory for free. They ARE the podcast industry. And they’ve been open. I see this purely as a reaction to Spotify and Google and others trying to grab and control the industry with p…

"They let 3rd party clients use their directory for free."

But all the numerous other free directories, I doubt they are all sourced from Apple. The non-Apple podcast hosting services provide RSS feeds. Self-hosted podcasts usually provide RSS feeds. Anyone can use these feeds, not just Apple.

Personally I think Apple's directory, as accessed via www, is inferior to some of the alternatives. For example, it does not list all episodes, only the most recent ones.

If I want a definitive podcast index, I go to the source of podcasts for the RSS feeds or just .mp3 URLs, not to Apple. (Apple appears to prefer .m4a to .mp3)

Most podcasts are not hosted on Apple servers. Apple is just retrieving XML files from someone else.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#242

Post by hot_gril »

astrange wrote: post #207
hot_gril wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I never use Apple Pay, it's useless

Apple Pay is different from an NFC card tap because it's authenticated. This rarely matters in the US but it can in other countries.

Yes, in theory it should be more secure, but they aren't passing that benefit onto the customer in the form of a lower fee or anything, so it's pointless to me.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#243

Post by mrkstu »

howinteresting wrote: post #34
bastawhiz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except that "pod"casts have always been Apple's ecosystem. They've introduced a new product that is less open, but haven't actually stopped supporting the completely open options that have always existed.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#244

Post by hot_gril »

ouid wrote: post #201
hot_gril wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use enough tech stuff to care. I have an iPhone and a Mac, and they go together in a few ways like iMessage, but that's not the reason I have both. They're just good products. I would swap one of them out if I didn't like it. The deeper integrations are just toys; why would I even remotely need a Homepod or an Apple Watch? Why would I use the crappy News app on my Mac instead of a web browser? The scarier thi…

What you are noticing is that competition is literally the worst strategy that corporations can adopt with respect to each other. Apple and Samsung probably have the keys to each other's destruction, but destroying the other would be bad because the remaining party would become a "monopoly" which is a loss condition, So the destruction is mutually assured, and intrinsic cooperation is possible. There's more money to…

I figured the same, but I'm still a little surprised because there are so many major Android phonemakers who should be competing. It's Samsung, LG, Google (Pixel), etc. Though the software is a duopoly of course.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#245

Post by sbuk »

bastawhiz wrote: post #127
CharlesW wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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… You definitely can. What the author said was, "What I learned is that Apple does not produce an RSS feed for podcasts that they host". But this is misplaced outrage on the author's part, since Apple has never produced RSS f…

Every other podcast hosting service in existence provides RSS feeds. But unless you've already done your homework and you're starting a podcast, you don't know why not having one is important.

Spotify?

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#246

Post by hot_gril »

MBCook wrote: post #197
hot_gril wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who get iPhones just for iMessage. They don't want to be the one person who puts the entire group chat into "green bubble" mode. People accuse Apple of doing this intentionally, but you know, it's not their fault SMS is terrible; even Android users tend to use WhatsApp or something for group chats.

So I totally understand that. But does that rise to the level of “I’m a better person than you”? I guess I haven’t heard it put that way.

I know it was a thing in middle school, and I'll bet some people never grew out of it. I've never heard an adult directly say that having an iPhone makes you better, but I have seen groups exclude people based essentially on income, and none of those people would be caught holding an Android phone.

It's dumb, I hate smartphones.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#247

Post by willi59549879 »

gls2ro wrote: post #211
tomxor wrote: post #102

> That’s right: if you host your show with Apple, the only listeners you can have are folks with the Apple Podcasts app. This feels like an absolutely wild choice from a product perspective; it’s the mindset of a company who still thinks that they have dominance over the podcasting world. It’s ludicrous to assume that it’s a good thing for listeners to have to have specific hardware in order to listen to a podcast. I…

I agree that having everything on Apple Podcasts may put more power into Apple and hurt smaller businesses/projects. But I also totally dislike what is happening now with movie streaming I pay for a couple of platforms, and if I want to watch something, I start opening them one by one and search of that movie. Moreso when a tv series that I started watching on one platform suddenly migrates to another one so I have t…

I don't like the recent development either. With shows it is even worse for podcasts you can usually get an RSS feed that can be used by many apps

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#248

Post by willi59549879 »

CatWChainsaw wrote: post #195
tomxor wrote: post #102

> That’s right: if you host your show with Apple, the only listeners you can have are folks with the Apple Podcasts app. This feels like an absolutely wild choice from a product perspective; it’s the mindset of a company who still thinks that they have dominance over the podcasting world. It’s ludicrous to assume that it’s a good thing for listeners to have to have specific hardware in order to listen to a podcast. I…

The future is silos.

I hope not.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#249

Post by daqhris »

acer589 wrote: post #50
l33tbro wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overcast really destroys everything else I've used for listening to a podcast. Simple and intuitive UI, customizable streaming/download settings, quickly add any podcast - and that's at the free level. I would never go back to Apple or even Spotify. I rarely get enthusiastic about apps, but it's awesome when one clearly demonstrates a team having gone 'how can we get this right'?

Just so you know, Overcast is not a team. It's one guy. marco.org

The sheer productivity and boundless creativity of this guy is exceptional. Thanks for the mention.

One of the heroes who allowed my teenage musings to be published on Tumblr. It's so wild and fascinating to know that the same single is behind one of the top podcast player app. Source: https://marco.org/2013/05/20/one-person-product

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#250

Post by autoexec »

gls2ro wrote: post #211
tomxor wrote: post #102

> That’s right: if you host your show with Apple, the only listeners you can have are folks with the Apple Podcasts app. This feels like an absolutely wild choice from a product perspective; it’s the mindset of a company who still thinks that they have dominance over the podcasting world. It’s ludicrous to assume that it’s a good thing for listeners to have to have specific hardware in order to listen to a podcast. I…

I agree that having everything on Apple Podcasts may put more power into Apple and hurt smaller businesses/projects. But I also totally dislike what is happening now with movie streaming I pay for a couple of platforms, and if I want to watch something, I start opening them one by one and search of that movie. Moreso when a tv series that I started watching on one platform suddenly migrates to another one so I have t…

> I agree that having everything on Apple Podcasts may put more power into Apple But I also totally dislike what is happening now with [streaming]...I start seeing that with podcasts: some of them launched only on other platforms and now I have to install 4-5 podcast apps on my phone and keep track of all of them when something new appears

You hate it when you have to use different/specific apps to get access to certain content. Apple is making it so that a bunch of people will be forced to use apple's app to get certain podcasts. It sounds like apple is making the problem you dislike worse for many people, but since it isn't impacting you personally as an apple user you don't mind it?

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