[HN Gopher] The audacity of Apple Podcasts
___________________________________________________________________
The audacity of Apple Podcasts
Author : jeremiahlee
Score : 168 points
Date : 2023-01-25 18:13 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (basta.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (basta.substack.com)
| [deleted]
| voytec wrote:
| 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, and Apple blocked LAN-related options which came
| with purchased devices.
|
| At the same time Apple asked me to pay for the same functionality
| and their ecosystem's attractiveness started getting shittier.
| Since then, with similar actions, Tim Cook switched increasingly
| more of my activities from Apple's increasingly-hostile and toxic
| ecosystem to almost anywhere else.
| pfranz wrote:
| I think what you experienced is a shift in philosophy at Apple
| and rot by low maintenance. In the early 2000s Apple's approach
| seemed to be having your computer be "the hub" and things could
| sync or stream from your computer (like your iPod requiring a
| computer). That seemed to cause problems when you had multiple
| computers, take your devices away from home, requiring your
| computer to be on and connected, requiring you to own a
| computer to use devices, etc. They seemed to abandon that for
| awhile and later shift to the cloud being the hub...along with
| ongoing subscriptions.
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| 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
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Home Sharing covers some of it, but the limitations of
| requiring everything physically on the same network and
| logged into the same Apple ID sound way more stringent.
|
| Even for a family for instance, it means they'd all have to
| share the same ID, which would be a royal PITA, especially if
| you're setting parental controls for the kids.
| voytec wrote:
| 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.
| cosmotic wrote:
| I stopped using Apple Podcasts because 1) they killed
| connectivity to my iPod; 2) the app is extremely buggy; and 3)
| the app is totally unusable.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I only use Apple Podcasts to automatically sync a couple of
| podcasts onto my Apple Watch. The rest of the time I use
| Overcast. But that Apple Watch sync feature is a compelling use
| case.
| wingworks wrote:
| I primarily listen to Podcasts on my Mac, been using the
| default Apple one... which works, but it feels very much like
| a half baked copy from the iPad app.
|
| Sadly no Overcast on Mac, anyone found a good podcast player
| for Mac? (paid or free)
|
| Edit: Little things like pressing left/right arrows does
| nothing in the app. (just want to skip around the podcast
| ads). Buggy UI (as I type this, the volume slider in the app
| is greyed out.. but still works). Also there doesn't appear
| to be any timer, to stop the podcast after x minutes. (I sure
| it used to do this)
| ezfe wrote:
| There is Overcast on Mac for Apple silicon devices
| wingworks wrote:
| There is? wow. (though I'm still rock'n an Intel Mac)
| danaris wrote:
| Yes; you can install most iPhone/iPad software on Apple
| Silicon devices, since they more or less share the same
| core.
| hrrsn wrote:
| It's the iPad app but it works well enough on macOS
| miguelazo wrote:
| More great fodder for the antitrust trials.
| vmoore wrote:
| I deliberately don't use any of Apple's services, even though I
| own an iPhone. The only thing I use is the App Store, and even
| then I'm a minimalist as to what I install. If I want to listen
| to podcasts, I use the VLC Player app, and grab the podcast from
| the Podcast's official site, and then use iTunes to transfer the
| .MP3 to VLC, over USB.
|
| Cause I'm oldskool like that. If the podcast in question doesn't
| have a site where I can download episodes at my leisure, I send a
| friendly e-mail to the podcast asking them to provide
| downloadable MP3s so I can avoid the vendor lock-in of Apple and
| other companies (who also build a profile of your listening
| habits, because they chant they need it for 'improvements to our
| service').
| harshitaneja wrote:
| I appreciate the sentiment of not wanting to give into vendor
| lock-in for convenience but why manually download podcasts and
| go through the whole process when you can use RSS and ask
| podcasters to keep supporting RSS feeds?
|
| You get good ergonomics while still keeping the process
| decentralized and without vendor lock-ins?
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I agree-- RSS feeds are wonderful. I just wish more podcasts
| kept a complete feed. I'm a "completionist" and it turns me
| off when I have to scrape episode archive pages to get
| download links for past episodes that have dropped off the
| RSS feed. That's the biggest barrier for me to start
| listening to a new podcast.
|
| I own an iPhone but also don't use Apple's built-in
| functionality unless the feature supports standards-based
| services can self-host (CalDAV, IMAP, etc).
|
| I pull podcasts into my forked version of tt-rss[0] and use a
| script to pull down the enclosures onto my local webserver. I
| play the episodes using Safari (which, admittedly, is a sub-
| optimal experience) on my iPhone. (In my dreams I'd write an
| HTML5 front-end to play episodes, mark them to retain after
| listening, keep bookmarks, etc...)
|
| [0] https://tt-rss.org/
| harshitaneja wrote:
| I feel you. Even though I am more okay with the transience
| of the feeds.
|
| I have a similar setup but running on my cloud VM and using
| my custom scripts and apps. I have built a CLI client but
| not gotten around to mobile apps yet. Hope to finish work
| on a proper self hosted server and a suite of applications
| for desktop and mobile for the same and open source it.
| greedo wrote:
| You do realize that most podcasts are MP3s that you can
| download, and that podcasting uses RSS to notify clients? The
| way you're doing it is worse than the way Stallman reads
| email...
| nofreelunch wrote:
| That is so much work to go through when you could just buy an
| android instead of an iphone!
|
| I don't see how this could possibly provide you any benefit
| besides some sort of glib satisfaction. You don't want to
| support apple but still give them money to use their devices.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| It seems bizarre to me that any serious podcast would fail to
| retain:
|
| - Their own backups of their master audio
|
| - Separate uploads to competing services with significant market
| share (e.g. Spotify)
|
| It's not really surprising that Apple DRM-locks the audio files
| pulled from their podcast service. They should have messaged that
| better, but Apple has DRM locked everything coming from their
| music services for a very long time.
| brunoTbear wrote:
| I think the author's point would be that Apple is doing this to
| non-serious or not-serious-yet podcasters.
|
| Let he who is without a data loss event cast the first "their
| own backups" stone.
|
| Given that nobody else DRMs podcast audio, this is deeply
| surprising.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Here's what's fucked: once you've started using Apple for
| hosting, you're stuck._
|
| The fundamental misunderstanding is that Apple is not hosting the
| source RSS feed or media. As someone who operates a podcast
| hosting service, it's bizarre to me that the author doesn't
| understand this.
|
| > _This customer was pasting their Apple listing URL, but the
| import tool was not getting a feed back._
|
| Of course, because it's not an RSS feed URL. And again, I'm
| shocked that this person doesn't understand the difference.
| iddan wrote:
| The single reason my podcast Merged is not on Apple yet is
| because it's too damn hard to register to Apple Podcasts. Apple
| missed out on podcasts and left Spotify to make the big numbers
| and money.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Would love to see the whiteboards at Apple showing all the flow
| chart strategies to trap people with DRM.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| > Apple is letting people pay $20/year for the privilege of being
| locked into an ecosystem run by people who think that they're the
| best thing since the transistor radio. They make it virtually
| impossible to leave, even when they offer no meaningful value-add
| to folks who have outgrown their meager offering.
|
| Sounds like a lot of what Apple does!
| mikece wrote:
| "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 but to use a tiny fraction of the resources
| they are using now to get it done.
|
| [1] https://podcasting20.substack.com/p/podping
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > creating DDoS levels of traffic
|
| Author here. This has never been a problem, both in terms of
| volume and cost. I host ~0.25% (maybe more? I haven't checked
| recently) of all podcasts listed on Apple and up to a few years
| ago, I wasn't even using a CDN. Two Heroku dynos at ~$250/mo
| (25 customer subscriptions today) running a Python back-end
| with no caching at all was able to keep up without trouble. In
| fact, the only reason I added a CDN was Heroku's infrastructure
| having spooky issues with that volume of traffic.
|
| Podcast hosting providers larger than me running on their own
| hardware should have (had) exactly zero trouble.
| georgel wrote:
| The entirety of all the podcasts on iTunes/Apple Podcasts RSS
| feeds downloaded is around 200-250GB across the 2.5M+ pods.
| Hosting the RSS feed should be an easy task. Add in caching
| via ETag and server-side (host the feed as a static file,
| only re-render when user updates something), and your server
| load goes down drastically.
|
| It gets a bit complex if your hosting company supports
| dynamic audio/ad insertion depending on how you accomplish
| that, but as far as retrieving the RSS XML feed, that has no
| impact.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Audio insertion is actually straightforward: the audio URLs
| from the feed can redirect!
| djl0 wrote:
| I'm interested to see this podping service, however given the
| whole model of RSS is that the end-user is requesting feed
| updates (I would guess daily on average, but maybe hourly?), I
| have a hard time thinking this was a problem for podcast
| providers. I have no knowledge of the implementation at scale,
| but given the feed is static for the most part, wouldn't
| podcast hosting providers want their users constantly checking
| in?
| mikece wrote:
| Depends on the podcast and the users. If I know my favorite
| afternoon commute podcast drops at 4:30 PM local and I don't
| see it by 4:45 PM, I'm going to be doing the pull-to-refresh
| thing frequently, hoping it's available to download before I
| leave the WiFi at work for my drive home. I suppose Podping
| plus push notification to all app installs subscribed to the
| podcast that just updated would be another way to do it.
| tomxor wrote:
| > 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'm gona keep shouting this from the rooftops and maybe it will
| eventually sink in for some people:
|
| Apple's end game is vertical integration, it's "lock-in" on
| steroids. When they own every product or service in the stack,
| they can tune one product like podcasts to serve the purposes of
| another even if appears to hurt a product individually.
|
| 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. The deeper
| someone gets, the more painful it's going to be when that table
| flip moment comes, because that table has the weight of the whole
| Apple ecosystem holding it down - and so they will endure much
| pain before doing so; If that table flip moment comes with a
| competitor for an individual service like this one, it's going to
| be a tiny inconvenience as they migrate to another one, and so
| they will endure less, and the product owner has more market
| pressure to provide a good service. People will argue with
| counter points and examples, but the core issue is the broad
| strategy that does not have user interests at heart.
| jjcon wrote:
| The best part is how Apple Podcasts had a 1.x star rating in the
| App Store so they gamed the system in a way that would get any
| other app kicked off - they prompted people for reviews making
| them think they were rating specific podcasts and not the app
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/19/22791968/apple-podcasts-...
| chrisoverzero wrote:
| > We weren't able to track down a copy of the prompt ourselves
| to confirm when and where it appears or what it looks like --
| which seems important if people are getting confused [...]
|
| This is speculation presented as news. The confusion certainly
| appears to be real, but there's no actual _investigative
| reporting_.
| jjcon wrote:
| It's not speculation just because they don't have a photo of
| the prompt (of which I've received personally) - the story is
| in plain sight in the ratings themselves, go have a look.
|
| Here's another article from an apple friendly source
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2021/11/19/podcasts-rating-
| prompt-...
|
| EDIT: Actually - found a screenshot mid-podcast:
| https://i.imgur.com/dnqcAbQ.jpeg
| wwalexander wrote:
| I was recently on a long drive and, if I had started listening to
| a podcast, then listened to something else, then tried to resume
| the podcast, it wouldn't play. I tried multiple episodes, marking
| it as played, restarting the app, and restarting the phone and
| still couldn't resume.
|
| Funnily enough, the podcast was ATP, wherein Marco Arment
| frequently discusses his podcast app Overcast.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| Reading this, I get the impression that someone at Apple tried to
| do the market capture playbook tactics (churn prevention,
| competitor lockout, first-party-favoritism) in an open world
| (podcasts). Obviously it doesn't work, while eroding the
| underlying ecosystem.
|
| The smart move by Apple is to keep podcasts open, keep being the
| de facto provider, don't bother making money from it now, and use
| it as a foot-in-the-door as the web evolves for future plays.
| janalsncm wrote:
| Without understanding DRM that well, I'm wondering if there are
| analog workarounds. You can't encrypt a sound wave between the
| speaker and the eardrum.
| sircastor wrote:
| You can absolutely record the sound in realtime, but you're
| also losing fidelity in that recording. It's obviously not as
| bad as not having the audio at all, but if you're trying to
| capture it to upload to another provider then the experience
| your 2nd-provider audience gets is not as good as the
| 1st(Apple)-provider.
| praisewhitey wrote:
| >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.
|
| I'd guess the opposite, it's the mindset of a company that feels
| they lost dominance over the podcasting world and are trying to
| hold on what's left.
| lancesells wrote:
| I've noticed Apple is destroying their brand equity in so many
| ways just to squeeze out as much from their customers as
| possible. Having advertisements in my iPhone settings just shows
| how petty they are willing to be. I used to use their TV app but
| now it's first purpose is an advertisement for Apple TV+.
| karavelov wrote:
| Would GDPR request under Article 15 work to get your data out?
| Orlan wrote:
| Perhaps there were special deals in place for high profile
| podcasts?
|
| I've never used the Apple Podcast app, and only learned about the
| Apple only features while listening to John Carreyrou's podcast
| during the Theranos trial. They had member only episodes (paid)
| which were only accesible using Apple's app, but they also had a
| public RSS feed which excluded those members only episodes.
| jxdxbx wrote:
| 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.
| joeconway wrote:
| 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
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| I don't know why anyone is surprised. Apple's entire business
| model is trapping unwitting potential customers.
| Animats wrote:
| Ah, Apple.
|
| Watch the classic Apple "Rip, Mix, Burn" commercial.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBPp-h3uNs8
| paulette449 wrote:
| 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
| apozem wrote:
| Awful app. I tried using it because you can use it with the
| Apple Watch to listen to podcasts without a phone. This is
| essential for me, because I have a wifi Watch and like to run
| sans phone.
|
| Apple Podcasts for the Watch apparently will not download any
| podcast over two hours for offline playback. This limit is not
| documented anywhere on their website or in any forum. I'm not
| even sure it's two hours. I just noticed episodes under two
| hours downloaded, and episodes over two hours didn't.
|
| It is a dealbreaking defect that it cannot download long
| podcasts. It is also user-hostile and absurd they do not
| document this limit or at least show an error message.
| jiscariot wrote:
| My favorite part of Apple podcasts is going to Library | Shows
| and then having all the show icons rearrange themselves every-
| time I'm about to click the one I want (as they update).
|
| Only been happening for like 5+ years.
| Daniel_sk wrote:
| Apple Podcast app is pure garbage, it doesn't even sync your
| library correctly between devices (e.g. marking something as
| played).
| l33tbro wrote:
| 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'?
| acer589 wrote:
| Just so you know, Overcast is not a team. It's one guy.
|
| marco.org
| arwhatever wrote:
| 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.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| HBO Max is the worst offender in this regard. I've downloaded
| entire seasons of shows only for them to refuse to play
| without a connection -- after I boarded an airplane.
| willhslade wrote:
| Broken is better than unreliable.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _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 subscription fee then it
| makes sense that the podcast lives in a walled DRM'ed garden.
| Also, if Apple is hosting it for nearly free ($20/year is
| nothing), why would you expect Apple to make it available to
| competing podcast apps? If you post something on TikTok it
| doesn't show up on people's Facebook feeds.
|
| 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.
| [deleted]
| bastawhiz wrote:
| 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 upload a podcast to
| Apple, it's physically inaccessible unless you have a Mac or an
| iOS device.
|
| > Apple isn't taking away self-hosted RSS podcast feeds.
|
| That was never the point, and not my concern. What they're
| doing is tricking small podcasters into signing up for a cheap
| service that prevents them from ever leaving.
| andrewjl wrote:
| > If I upload a podcast to Apple, it's physically
| inaccessible unless you have a Mac or an iOS device.
|
| I'm curious if this sort of arrangement will remain in place
| in Europe once the DMA interoperability requirements come
| into effect.
| SllX wrote:
| I look at the DMA and I start to wonder if all Europe is
| really going to get out of this is "EU editions" of
| products; and not just from Apple. They're certainly a
| lucrative market, probably deserving of their own SKUs.
| SllX wrote:
| 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
| distribution into the biggest podcast ecosystem that exists
| with the _option_ to charge a premium and keep 70%; it's
| because they're trying to turn their Podcast app into YouTube
| for Podcasts with an App Store model which is just on its
| face total crap. The fix is to find a different hosting
| provider and decline the services Apple is offering you.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I can't agree that signing an agreement means Apple gets to
| behave however they want within the confines of the law. A
| contract should not be something that one hides behind, but
| something that someone holds up as enshrining a shared,
| common sense understanding of an agreement.
|
| The fact that an Apple Podcasts user tried to do something
| that is 1) not unreasonable given other podcasting
| platforms and 2) not clearly understood to be contractually
| barred tells me that there is unacceptable deception.
|
| Companies can write all sorts of convoluted (and legally
| enforceable) contracts but that is not the future we should
| be striving towards. Having the law on your side does not
| make it ethical.
| SllX wrote:
| If you're a hobbyist, you might go "oh no, this won't
| work out, Overcast users can't see my podcast" and switch
| hosting providers.
|
| If you're going into podcasting as a business, don't
| skimp on having a lawyer review the things you'll be
| signing up and paying for, and if you skimp on that and
| get unlucky, expect to be doing the work required to move
| providers if what you signed up for isn't satisfactory.
| It's really that simple. This service costs this much and
| has these limitations, that service costs more but
| doesn't have those limitations.
|
| So yeah, when you sign a service agreement, expect only
| exactly what the service offers in the agreement, and if
| the terms are not satisfactory, go sign with someone
| else. What is the issue? If I can't find someone's
| podcast in Overcast, I'm simply never going to consider
| even listening to it. Conversely, some podcasters are
| actually okay with that and would prefer to pay for
| cheaper hosting. That's a valid choice for them to make
| too, but they are making a choice whether they pay
| attention to it or not.
|
| Also: just a note, this is only a hosting issue. You can
| still list your podcast in the iTunes Podcast Directory
| (or whatever it's called now) without hosting on Apple's
| servers.
| smithza wrote:
| The "is-should" gap here is irrelevant. In our ideal
| worlds Apple "should" not hide the data and protect the
| audio files with DRM. Apple argues against this position
| with their business interest in mind.
| janalsncm wrote:
| 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 that in a
| democracy we have some liberty to adjust.
| tootie wrote:
| Apple announced they would allow passthrough hosting for
| premium feeds a few weeks ago. Right now it's only open to
| handful of big hosting partners, but will probably open up
| more in the near future. This was likely more about laziness
| and/or rushing to market that it was a genuine ploy. Apple is
| still the bulk of our listening (60ish%) and we still get all
| the first-party download metrics from our hosting service.
| Premium feeds are rehosted by Apple and it's huge PITA
| because we have ad-supported public feeds and ad-free premium
| feeds and need to build them twice. That will hopefully be
| fixed soon.
| filoleg wrote:
| > If I upload a podcast to Apple, it's physically
| inaccessible unless you have a Mac or an iOS device.
|
| Unless I am misunderstanding your claim, this is not true.
|
| You can listen to Apple Podcasts using iTunes for Windows.
| You can also listen to them on Android. But dealing with it
| on Android is indeed annoying, because it requires
| downloading podcasts in itunes on your desktop, and then
| manually transferring them to your Android phone after
| finding the locally stored files.
|
| However, it is easy to sidestep all of that if the podcast
| creator just uploads to multiple podcast hosting platforms.
| tshaddox wrote:
| You can also listen to it on the Apple Podcasts website,
| e.g. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-
| daily/id1200361736...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > requires downloading podcasts in itunes on your desktop,
| and then manually transferring them to your Android phone
| after finding the locally stored files.
|
| TFA says they're DRMed, are they still readable on a random
| android client just by moving the files ?
| filoleg wrote:
| That part of TFA confused me as well, because I just
| tested it out on my Win10 desktop, and it worked
| effortlessly.
|
| I didn't even have to search for the local files. iTunes
| had a nice "Show in Windows Explorer" button next to the
| episode I downloaded, which opened a directory with the
| mp3 audio file for the episode neatly tagged and named
| and all. I opened it with VLC and confirmed that the
| playback works perfectly fine.
|
| Disclaimer: I haven't tested the part with transferring
| the file to an Android device specifically. But if an mp3
| audio file plays fine in any third-party media player on
| Windows, I think it is safe to assume that it would play
| fine on Android as well.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > 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 never be able to change that. The
| audacious part is this:
|
| > They say that your podcast will be available to listeners on
| Apple Podcasts, but they don't explicitly say that your podcast
| won't be available to anyone else. When you upload your audio,
| they say it will have DRM, but they don't make it clear what
| the consequences of this are. They tell you your show won't
| have an RSS feed, but they don't tell you what you're giving up
| by not having one. This is predatory.
|
| Which, I agree with the author, is a really, really wild thing
| to do, which few companies could think they'd get away with.
| You can just imagine a PM saying "ayy, they don't like it?
| screw 'em, we're Apple!"
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >they say it will have DRM
|
| I confused what possible definition of 'Digital Rights
| Management' could entail 'anyone can freely rip your files.'
| [deleted]
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| 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.
| friend_and_foe wrote:
| What about "I can freely rip my own files"? Does the
| definition preclude that also?
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _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 feeds.
| xoa wrote:
| > _If you 're charging a subscription fee then it makes sense
| that the podcast lives in a walled DRM'ed garden_
|
| No, it absolutely does not. In the same way it doesn't make any
| sense to have DRM on music or anything else I pay for. I'm a
| paying customer, why should my experience and the product I'm
| paying for literally be worse then the people who pirate it?
| This thinking is straight out of the 90s/00s RIAA playbook that
| Apple themselves played a major role in tearing down! Normal
| podcast systems charge money and make things member-only just
| fine with normal RSS and standard sound. If someone wants to
| save one they got while paying to listen to again later so
| what?
|
| > _Also, if Apple is hosting it for nearly free ($20 /year is
| nothing), why would you expect Apple to make it available to
| competing podcast apps?_
|
| "Nearly" isn't actually free. It's a paid service, and it's for
| something that's "nearly free" to provide too by that argument.
| Why shouldn't it just be standard, with a bit of Apple polish
| in the interface and tooling and some options for users to add
| Apple as an intermediary for privacy if they want? This is a
| dumb, good-will burning approach for peanuts. Anything Apple
| gets from this isn't worth even having a front page story on HN
| and a few thousand people noticing and getting just a little
| bit more irritated. It's a symptom of a company that isn't
| thinking as holistically as it once did, or more charitably
| this is such an unimportant thing that it didn't actually get
| any serious attention and they just built it in a proprietary
| lazy way out of their current defaults I guess.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| > In the same way it doesn't make any sense to have DRM on
| music or anything else I pay for
|
| You're not buying it, you're renting it. A subscription is a
| monthly payment, you will no longer have paid access once you
| choose to stop paying for it. It has DRM for the same reason
| Spotify, Apple Music, et al. use DRM.
| greedo wrote:
| So you think Apple should host podcasts for free out of the
| goodness of their heart? Apple's a business, not a
| charity/non-profit.
|
| Podcast hosting for $20/year is a huge bargain. Libsyn's
| cheapest plan is $5/month with limits on storage. Add in the
| fact that you're published by one of the largest podcast
| directories on earth and the value is immense.
| JeremyBanks wrote:
| [dead]
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| > why would you expect Apple to make it available to competing
| podcast apps?
|
| Because you don't want your audience to be captured by Apple,
| who can extract rents based on their artificially mediating the
| relationship with them (through their app and network of
| podcasts)?
|
| This is like asking "why should you expect a superior business
| relationship?". Corporate network Stockholm syndrome.
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| 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.
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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 the author tries to provide an "import from
| Apple Podcasts" service for convenience, but that's merely a
| convenience. 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.
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| What a weird attitude. "Why would you ever expect [Business
| X] to offer [Feature Y] that you, as a potential customer,
| would like to see?"
|
| edit: especially since they are an outlier in the podcast
| hosting space in this regard!
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > 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.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _If you reupload your audio to a new hosting service,
| there 's no way to have your listeners move to the new
| service._
|
| That's incorrect.
|
| https://podcasters.apple.com/support/3965-how-to-change-
| host...
| freedomben wrote:
| > _I understand that the author tries to provide an "import
| from Apple Podcasts" service for convenience, but that's
| merely a convenience._
|
| When you run a podcast with thousands or tens of thousands
| of episodes, each with titles, descriptions, tags, and all
| other sorts of metadata on top of the mp3, it's not "merely
| a convenience."
| moogleii wrote:
| 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,
| you must go through Instagram to see photos. These users
| aren't there just for generic hosting, but also for the
| network effects. For those that want generic hosting, there
| are other more appropriate services, like google photos or
| maybe Flickr (or self hosting).
|
| I'm not arguing the Podcasts/Instagram model is better, just
| that there is fairly old precedent, so the purported shock
| value seems pretty low.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| 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.
|
| > These users aren't there just for generic hosting, but
| also for the network effects.
|
| The network effects are limited to an app with only 40% of
| the market. Outside the US, that number is even smaller.
|
| > just that there is fairly old precedent
|
| Every podcast hosting service ever has allowed you to leave
| their service.
| howinteresting wrote:
| 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.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| >Moreover, you physically can't leave, because your
| listeners won't follow you to your new hosting service.
|
| This is patently not true. I've had to do this after a
| podcast host had an outage and our followers moved over
| because we posted on social that there was a new feed.
| Joe Rogan's followers moved to Spotify just fine after he
| removed all other traces of his show.
|
| It's not great but you're literally getting what you pay
| for.
| timerol wrote:
| 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.
| greedo wrote:
| All the podcasters I know of DON'T delete their master
| versions, because podcast hosts routinely have issues
| where they have to re-upload files.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is bad behavior, antithetical to the spirit of podcasting.
| Offering DRM for paid subscriptions, or as an option, is one
| thing, but requiring it whether the podcast host wishes it or not
| is not defensible.
| freetime2 wrote:
| > 40% is nothing to shake a stick at. If you entered the
| podcasting space (like Spotify did) and captured 40% of users,
| you'd have an amazing product.
|
| Didn't Spotify spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get
| exclusive rights to podcasts (Joe Rogan comes to mind)? That
| isn't very innovative, and it actively reduces the choice and
| competition in the marketplace.
|
| Good for Joe Rogan though (allegedly) getting $200+ million out
| of Spotify.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I think some of these issues stem from the paid subscriptions
| part (especially the lack of an RSS feed). I'm not very familiar
| with RSS, but is there a solution for authenticated RSS yet?
|
| The authentication could be used to validate that you're a
| subscriber, and push out subscriber-only content, allowing
| creators to monetize in more ways while also keeping the platform
| open.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Wait -- there are podcasts you just can't listen to if you don't
| have an Apple device? That's beyond absurd.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| There are also podcasts you can only listen to on Spotify. Also
| absurd.
| oezi wrote:
| Enough podcasts to listen to that aren't on any of these
| platforms.
|
| Give me RSS or death.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Technically you can listen to them using iTunes for Windows,
| but it's still absurd. It's a closed system, which podcasting
| should not be.
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