iTunes 4.9
Apple released itunes 4.9 with integrated podcasting support today. Among the more interesting pieces i read on this so far are Dave Winer’s assessment, Edd Dumbill’s assessment and Brent Simmons’ take on this as an rss aggregator developer.
I had to bring my ibook back into repairs again (more on this later) so i couldn’t check out the ipod integration so far, but here’re a few thoughts from a quick testdrive of the windows version (as a bulleted list because it’s getting late and i need to get to bed):
- Their implementation is pretty nice considering it’s their first try and it makes a lot of sense to integrate podcasting support with your digital music library.
- The approach of separating your podcasts from regular audio in your library is great. I don’t wanna run into a podcast while shuffling and setting up a smart playlist just for excluding podcasts is a little tedious. Would be nice if there was something like this for audiobooks as well.
- From what i’ve heard the latest ipod firmware implements this separation of podcasts and other audio as well. A welcome surprise, i just wonder how much longer it’ll take to get compilation grouping support in there as well… this has been missing for at least months and i’m slowly losing my hope.
- I see no way to subscribe to podcasts outside their own, controlled directory. Perhaps i’m missing something obvious or this is actually hidden somewhere deep inside some half-forgotten menu, but if not this is bad. Nobody likes gate-keepers and walled gardens, it should be possible to subscribe to a podcast by specifying its rss-feed url.
I wonder (again) where this leaves odeo. For all i know they are still in invitation-only beta. Last numbers i heard they’ve handed out 11.000 accounts and now apple the goliath comes to market before them. I bet apple had more users on day one than odeo signed up in the weeks up to its launch.
I was lucky enough to get an odeo account recently and even though it’s really slick and one of the most polished web applications i’ve ever seen, they’ll still have a hard time competing with podcasting support directly built into your music player, no add-ons required. Honestly i wouldn’t bother to use another service that ultimately has to be more cumbersome to use by its own design and platform. On the other hand, i couldn’t find suicidegirls radio on itunes while odeo has it…
We hacked up our rss2.php file to better support the new tagging in the iTunes store. Noticed you’re on wordpress also and might benefit from it, until something better gets worked out.
Best,
Rob
PS, here’s the link straight to the article we’ve posted…
http://geekspeakradio.com/?p=40
Comment by Rob on Jun. 30th, 2005, at 17:27 #