The audacity of Apple Podcasts • Hacker News Board

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#281

Post by steve1977 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 10:03 AM UTC

MBCook wrote: post #193

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get that Apple stuff is generally a nice experience and there is genuinely lots of cool technology, but people need to understand the future they are buying into with Apple. Can't speak for all Apple users, but the way a lot of my friends talk about their phones - it is crystal clear they think they're better than you if you don't have an iPhone. I imagine this subset of users would be glad that people without iP…

As someone who loves Apple stuff: what kind of people are you hanging out with? I’ve never heard an adult I interact with express that. My Android using friends don’t care.

I think it's local phenomenon. It seems to be the case in the US at least. Where I live (Switzerland), most people are using WhatsApp (or Threema or Signal) anyway, even if they have iPhones.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#282

Post by steve1977 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 10:08 AM UTC

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…

Destroying the other company would primarily be bad because Apple is a good customer of Samsung ;)

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#283

Post by rhaway84773 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 10:38 AM UTC

simonh wrote: post #235

b0tch7 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has controlled the podcast industry through the iTunes podcast directory since day one. > They ARE the podcast industry. And they’ve been open. Hmmm is this really true? I've been listening to podcasts since 2012ish which puts me fairly early in the adoption curve and I've never used iTunes once (always been PocketCasts on Android). Anyway, just another f'ing reason to NOT go all-in on Apple. Apple Podcasts k…

>> They ARE the podcast industry. And they’ve been open. >Hmmm is this really true? They’ve accounted for the vast majority of podcast listeners since the early iPod days. It’s literally why they are called podcasts. They only dipped below 50% of listeners relatively recently.

Both podcasts and the term podcast predated Apple’s support of podcasts. The reason it was named as such was because iPods were the most popular listening device for podcasts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#284

Post by whywhywhywhy » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 10:56 AM UTC

mikece wrote: post #3

"Under the hood, Apple stopped having each device request a copy of RSS feeds." Yes, because this was creating DDoS levels of traffic to podcast hosting providers. Now Apple simply pings madly away at all known podcast RSS feeds and updates clients when there is a new episode. What would be far greener -- and efficient! -- would be for them to get on board with PodPing[1] to not only deliver feed updates much faster…

Would podcast hosting providers rather get an engineer that knows how to handle that traffic and get all the tracking and ID data of a device that they can communicate to their advertisers or have Apple make their lives easier but their service less valuable?

Apple reality distortion to claim this is positive for them.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#285

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 11:12 AM UTC

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…

Except that you were warned about this, but you still chose to use platforms, hence becoming part of the problem yourself.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#286

Post by jxdxbx » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 11:17 AM UTC

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…

I agree with this--however it was largely accidental. Apple supported open podcasting because that is all there was. I also agree that changes to Apple's podcast efforts for the worse are mostly about countering Spotify, which by the way is the real bad actor in closing down podcasts, by a country mile.

It sure would be nice though if instead of just praising podcasts as they have been, if there were open solutions to various problems open podcasts face that are not shared by closed ecosystems: There is still no good way to share a link or a clip for instance, unless the podcast app bakes its own (which will not work with other apps). There should be RSS syncing back-ends not tied to any one app as well.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#287

Post by jxdxbx » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 11:19 AM UTC

joeconway wrote: post #37

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

Sure there is. For example if you want to use one client on one platform, another client on another. I want not just my subscriptions to be updated on an ongoing basis between two unrelated clients, but play position and play/unplayed to sync.

That said with RSS I just use NetNewsWire which does local crawling of my feeds, and it updates its state via iCloud. But I'd definitely want a web interface if I needed one to access my feeds on a work computer or something.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#288

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 11:20 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #58

bastawhiz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. > If you're charging a subscription fee The DRM applies even if you charge no fee. > why would you expect Apple to make it available to competing podcast apps Because every single other podcast hosting service does, with the exception of folks that signed a contract with Spotify. > If you post something on TikTok it doesn't show up on people's Facebook feeds. It can, actually. You can post a link. If I u…

If you’re paying money, signing an agreement and uploading files, Apple isn’t tricking you: you’re not doing your due diligence OR you just don’t care if anyone outside the Podcasts app can listen (there are podcasters who for reasons—good or not—assume their reach is only about as far as iTunes/Apple Podcasts). This is crap, but it’s not because the deal Apple is offering to podcasters is crap: $20/year hosting and…

YouTube is very different in that its videos are not DRM protected, but the alternatives are (today at least) much worse in terms of content diversity.

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#289

Post by ESMirro » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 11:26 AM UTC

This is pretty clearly Apples attempt to create a Patreon podcast competitor & refers to the “Apple Podcasters Program” [1]. It’s not designed to host regular, free feeds in the traditional RSS style, quite deliberately. When signing up it is made very clear that there is no RSS feed & what the perks/restrictions of joining are.

The DRM, the fact there’s no RSS feed, the initial hosting cost - it all stems from the fact this is a service designed to host paid podcasts that subscribers can pay to access - of course it’s going to be closed off and restricted…

The header on the documentation page reads “Join the Apple Podcasters Program to start selling your subscriptions on Apple Podcasts”.

The article is poorly researched at best and likely thinly disguised marketing for the authors service, knowing most will just take them at their word without digging into the specifics of these ridiculous criticisms.

[1] https://podcasters.apple.com/support/892-apple-podcasters-pr...

Re: The audacity of Apple Podcasts

#290

Post by BlueTemplar » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 11:28 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #117

janalsncm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. To me the “is-should” gap is the only thing worth talking about. Everything else is just a matter of fact. I’m not a lawyer anyways so I don’t feel like my opinion on what the law is will be very helpful. Apple is going to do what is best for Apple, and when that is contrary to our interests we should talk about it. Laws of Man are not laws of nature, they are a perpetually shifting body of agreements tha…

You don’t need to be a lawyer to have opinions on what the law should be, but if you’re going to propose a legal reform you’re going to come up against the existing values that caused the existing laws to be formed. Contract law is about one of the oldest forms of law there is and it persists because it is fundamentally two or more parties coming to and being bound by an agreement. It is an age old tale at this point…

Laws supposedly punish anti competitive practices, yet somehow Apple still hasn't been shut down for owning both an OS and an app store (and with their own apps in there too !) on very personal computers...