iLounge

1

Unfortunately, the reviews make clear this is still alpha software and an embarrassment for Apple.

How can a company that is synonymous with podcasting in many people’s eyes not be able to deliver a podcasting app that actually *works*.

The sad thing is that podcasting works perfectly for iOS 4 and earlier, but they just had to go and monkey with it for 5 and now you either rely on the music and video apps or you deal with this piece of garbage.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 19, 2012 at 3:17 PM (PST)

2

@1: Addendum from the reviews, you don’t have an alternative in iOS 6, you *have* to use this app for any media of the podcast type and it’s as broken as it ever was in the previous versions if not more so (notably, users are reporting an inability to listen to podcasts while doing anything else *including* merely locking the screen, yikes).

Again, how does this happen?

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 19, 2012 at 8:42 PM (PST)

3

I think, Code Monkey, I read that you can get podcasts back into the Music App (although still with all the spoken word functionality of the Music app removed) by deleting the podcast app and resyncing with iTunes.

I agree whole heartedly that the Podcast app in an unintuitive, buggy, crashy mess. I keep using it because podcasts are the one thing that I was constantly syncing my device for. Now I get them over the air, but only when I open the app, and only sometimes, and with some confusing, inconsistent results.

Functionality and user-experience-wise, it is the opposite of what I expect from Apple. I only use it to avoid the 30 minute sync time that comes from plugging my device into my old iMac.

Posted by Rob E. on September 20, 2012 at 6:01 AM (PST)

4

@3: Had not read the bit about being able to delete it. Are you referring to using it under iOS 6? If so, it would be the first Apple app installed with an iOS installation that you can remove, which is an improvement in at least one way. People ranting in the reviews give the impression that the music app now has an “error” message that your podcasts are now in the Podcasts app and you have no such choice about what to use.

If you can delete it, I guess it won’t be any worse than the podcast support under iOS 5, although that was a major downgrade from iOS 4.

This is the disturbing pattern from Apple that is making me less attached to my iPods by the year: They are always so gung ho to implement some new shiny feature that nobody is asking for that they allow staple features to rot.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 20, 2012 at 7:34 AM (PST)

5

I got the impression that it was iOS 6. Haven’t tried it. Someone complaining that their podcast playlists were gone, but that they returned after deleting Podcasts app and resyncing. Is Podcasts part of iOS 6? In the past it has been an optional download, not a bundled program.

Posted by Rob E. on September 20, 2012 at 8:14 AM (PST)

6

@5: It is bundled with iOS 6, but I did some digging and found multiple people confirming that you can delete it and it will go back to the iOS 5 way of doing things. I guess somebody at Apple was at least smart enough to realize you couldn’t force people to use it without an ensuing garbage storm (unlike the Maps for some reason).

Now if they’ll just let me delete the rest of the useless stock apps

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 21, 2012 at 5:55 AM (PST)

7

I deleted the podcast app but I’m unable to get them to play under Music, although my video podcasts are where they should be.  How did you get it to work?

Posted by Andrew M on September 22, 2012 at 7:15 AM (PST)