Since Apple revamped its Podcasts app, podcasters have been complaining about bugs related to subscription-based episodes.
According to a report from The Verge, “podcasters say the platform has failed them in various ways.” They say Apple Podcasts Connect, for example, “has a confusing interface that often leads to user error scenarios “that have them pinging Apple at all hours of the day in a panic.”
“The updated app’s been buggy since launch. Earlier this summer, an auto-download bug caused a reported 31 percent drop in downloads, according to Podtrac. People who relied on Apple to download new episodes for them might have missed them entirely.”
One of the things podcasters complain about Apple Podcasts is the lack of RSS as a centralized place to publish to all podcasting platforms. With Apple’s solution, they still have to publish their episodes in a variety of places and manage various backends.
“Apple is coming at it from the lens of a big corporation,” says a podcast manager of an independent show, who prefers to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of their relationship with Apple. “I think it’s harder for them to think about smaller independent shows that have so few people on staff. It’s such a foreign concept to them; they’re Apple.”
Last month, 9to5Mac Bradley Chambers wrote about the good and the bad about Apple Podcasts’ new platform. He says that although Podcasts is very integrated into the OS, “the process of subscribing isn’t as seamless as it is when you do it now in Apple Podcasts.”
Now, about the ugly part, Chambers has the same complaints as podcasters heard by The Verge but with a user’s perspective:
“The syncing of followed shows on Apple Podcasts seems to work well. What doesn’t seem to sync well is the Listen Now and Latest Episodes section of the app. I primarily listen to podcasts on my iPhone but occasionally like to listen to my Mac or iPad. Whenever I launch the apps, it’s a hot mess as it tries to sync everything and never ends up getting the Listen Now and Latest Episodes in sync with what’s on my iPhone. Then, if I do finally get them in sync manually, the iPhone somehow gets out of sync.”
Apple is yet to addresses the Podcasts problem. Whether it’ll be with iOS 15 or another overhaul of the platform internally, we’re still to discover.
How’s your experience with Apple Podcasts so far? Are you subscribed to any show? Tell us in the comment section below.
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