If you have an iPhone, an iPad and/or an iPod, you’ve likely downloaded the new iOS 6 within the past week and a half. And unless you only use your phone as a phone--and, if so, why get an iPhone--you’ve probably run into something in the iOS update that you hate. Anyone who has opened up the new Maps app has discovered that Apple has dropped the privacy-invading, but beautifully amazing Google Maps app in favor of their own proprietary app. Apple’s Maps do not have street view. What’s worse is that iPhone users continue to report that the new app is wildly innacurate. Users are finding that the app’s directions regularly lead to nowhere, and that the labels of many locations on the map change from moment to moment. Additionally, iOS 6 has afflicted users with Wi-Fi connectivity issues, a significantly shorter battery life, music missing from the phone’s music library, and numerous third-party apps crashing, freezing, and just plain not working.
But many of these issues are already fixed or work-arounds have been discovered. There is, however, one major problem that has made it impossible for me to use my iPhone the way that I have always used my iPhone. To keep up with gaming culture, nerd culture, DIY culture, comedy and the entertainment industry, I listen to numerous podcasts throughout the day. Before September 19, to listen to a podcast I simply opened the Music app, selected the Podcasts tab and picked my poison. When I wanted to download new episodes I had multiple options. I could download podcast episodes directly to my iPhone through iTunes. This option was, generally, very quick and without incident. Another way of getting new podcast episodes on my iPhone was to download them through iTunes on my desktop Mac Mini and then either click and drag episodes onto the iPhone icon or select which podcasts I wanted and sync them to my iPhone. To save time and listen to the newest episodes of various podcasts, I could make a playlist and let it play from beginning to end. While listening to these various podcasts, I would read up-to-date news and my favorite blogs to know what was going on outside of the world of podcasting. Those were simpler times.
Now, iOS 6 has separated podcasts from the Music app, and i-device customers are forced to use Apple’s Podcasts app. The app was introduced on June 26, almost three months before iOS 6 became available. When the Podcasts app first hit iTunes, I gave it a shot. I found the reel-to-reel visual design interesting, and the position of podcasts in the library simple to organize. But I wondered why Apple was introducing this app dedicated to podcasts. No one was complaining about using the Music app. The Podcasts app was meeting no consumer need, solving no consumer issue. I only assumed that the app was in the early stages of becoming something much more than version 1.0. Many users left encouraging reviews of the app early on. Most of those users left five-star reviews accompanied by comments that seem to praise potential innovations that a separate Podcasts app could make possible. But the potential Podcasts app that users envisioned has yet to materialize.
After iOS 6 made the Podcasts app the iPhone’s podcast player and removed the podcasts tab from the Music app, reviews of the app became less understanding. Out of 2666 ratings--as of 8:30 pm ET, October 1, 2012--2048 users have given the current version of the Podcasts app one star. That is 78% of users since the iOS 6 update on September 19. Just what are these reviewers citing as reasons for such a low rating. The central reason: the Podcasts app sometimes completely prevents, but almost always complicates the podcast listening experience. For me, the Podcasts app has changed my daily routine.
Here’s how: First, the formerly simple process of directly downloading or quickly moving an episode of a podcast to my iPhone is no longer simple. Direct downloads are now a function of the Podcasts app. The new process is very similar to the old in theory, but in practice finding a podcast and selecting which episode to download has been significantly slowed by the Podcasts app’s long load times between pages. Further, for some inexplicable reason, the Podcasts app tends to download podcast episodes much slower than the phone’s connectivity speed. More annoyingly, trying to download multiple podcast episodes simultaneously either slows the downloads to a crawl or causes the app to crash. I have yet to be able to click and drag or sync podcast episodes to the Podcasts app through my desktop iTunes. Plus, the Podcasts app does not allow users to make podcast playlists. And, most problematic, the Podcasts app pauses if you are viewing certain websites or if you open some other app.
Other complaints from users include: the app sometimes stops when the screen goes off, episodes restart after playing for a few minutes, the app continually marks all episodes as new, episode info is no longer available, and the app downloads episodes of podcasts on its own using tremendous amounts of cellular data. Some users, myself included, have begun to think about moving away from the iPhone based on the fact that the Podcasts app has changed our daily ritual. Moving to an Android-powered device may seem like an overreaction, but those of us who have been loyal to Apple for decades have remained that way because Apple has always sought to make their products more and more user-friendly. The fact that there are some bugs and glitches with the iOS 6 update is nothing new to long-time Apple users. Only the most fair-weather iPhone user would think of switching to a different operating system because of a few software issues. The larger situation is that users for whom the Podcasts app may be a deal-breaker read the whole fiasco as a potential omen of things to come.
Understand, Apple’s decision to drop Google Maps for their own application may be an unpopular move right now, but once Apple invests enough into their new Maps app, it is unlikely that iPhone users will even remember a time when they used Google Maps. The iOS 6 update’s bugs will be worked out soon enough. But the decision to put podcasts in an entirely separate app that does not work, to take what wasn’t broke and break it, is a decision that gives off an odor of an ill-conceived, poorly-executed future for Apple software and hardware. Many life-long Apple fans were already in a state of anxiety for Apple’s future after Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011--almost a year ago today. And one could say that the Podcasts app smacks of Jobs’s philosophy in creating the iPad: know your consumer so you can create consumer want. With the iPad, Jobs opened the consumers’s eyes to a want they didn’t even know they had. Before the iPad, most people had no use for a tablet computer. Now, a large number of people use their iPads day-in and day-out to less-clumsily carry out functions on the go that were formerly relegated to the much larger laptop. The iPad also takes the place of a smartphone in instances where the iPad’s larger screen proves more convenient. For instance, the iPad is a far better mobile viewing device and serves as a more appropriate reader than a smartphone. But the Podcasts app does not make listening to podcasts more convenient, nor does removing podcasts from the Music app improve the overall performance of the Music app.
So, if the Podcasts app does not improve the user’s experience with the iPhone, then why did Apple create it and why have they decided to force iPad, iPhone and iPod owners to use it? At the moment, I can’t even begin to understand this decision. I won’t be surprised if, in a week, I’m singing the praises of the Podcasts app after an unexpected update. Though I may not give this impression, I will remain hopeful that the Podcasts app will pay off. But at this very moment, Apple’s decision to force an unusable app onto their loyal customers is well beyond my comprehension.
What’s your theory as to why Apple has segregated podcasts to a new, barely-functioning application? Are they making money off of it somehow? What’s going on?
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