Ten years ago, Apple brought podcasting to iTunes

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Ten years ago this month, at WWDC 2005, Apple brought podcasting to iTunes.

The feature launched on June 28, 2005, three weeks after the keynote. Here’s the Apple PR Machine:

Apple today announced it is taking Podcasting mainstream by building everything users need to discover, subscribe, manage and listen to Podcasts right into iTunes 4.9, the latest version of its award winning digital music software and online music store. iTunes users can now easily subscribe to over 3,000 free Podcasts and have each new episode automatically delivered over the Internet to their computer and iPod.

“Apple is taking Podcasting mainstream by building it right into iTunes,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Podcasting is the next generation of radio, and users can now subscribe to over 3,000 free Podcasts and have each new episode automatically delivered over the Internet to their computer and iPod.”

It’s hard to read Jobs’ personal excitement about the medium, but he says, “We see it as the hottest thing going in radio. Hotter than anything else in radio.” He clarified that this content wasn’t just by amateurs, but that major companies were in the mix as well.

The subscribing and auto-downloading of new content is what made podcasting the “TiVo for radio,” Jobs said, highlighting iTunes’ ability to do just that — and sync the files over a cable to iPods, making podcasts portable.

He closed his presentation on the feature saying, “We think it’s going to basically take podcasting mainstream, to where anyone can do it. We’re bringing innovation to the market.”

Turns out, Apple did just that.

It took just two days for the iTunes directory to see one million subscriptions, but the library itself wasn’t all that large compared to today. 3,000 podcasts doesn’t seem like a lot of shows anymore, and in June 2013, Apple hit a major milestone with their directory, as reported by Lex Friedman:

Apple on Monday announced that the iTunes Store eclipsed 1 billion podcast subscriptions. That’s a whole lot of talking. A special promotion appeared in the iTunes Podcasts directory to commemorate the big number.

Apple says that those billion subscriptions are spread across 250,000 unique podcasts in more than 100 languages, and that more than 8 million episodes have been published in the iTunes Store to date.

Today, the iTunes directory is home to over 500,000 discrete podcasts, but it isn’t the only directory out there. Apps like Overcast, <a href=”https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-casts/id414834813?mt=8&uo=6&at=11lt96″”>Pocket Casts and more maintain their own, separate directories with unique curation and search features.

For many types of shows, these third-party clients have eclipsed iTunes as the primary way people consume podcasts, putting Apple in a position of power, but not dominance, in some parts of the market. There are still a lot of people who use iTunes — and its extension on iOS, Podcasts, to listen to shows.

While WWDC 2005 has gone down in history for some bigger news, I’ll always remember it fondly.

Connected 44: Ignorance By Design ⇢

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I missed Connected this week, but it’s a good one:

This week the Europeans are going it alone to talk about the new iOS Notes app, iOS 9 on the iPad, Editorial 1.2, and whether WatchKit should have existed.

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Amazon updates Kindle Paperwhite ⇢

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Dieter Bohn:

Amazon is updating the Kindle Paperwhite today with a new display, now at 300 pixels per inch. That’s twice as sharp as the last iteration and the equal of the more expensive Kindle Voyage. Essentially, at $119, it takes away the biggest reason to opt for the $199 Voyage, whose advantages over the Paperwhite now mainly include a flush glass screen and separate page-turning “buttons” on the side. Amazon points out that the Voyage also has a higher-contrast, brighter screen — but the question is whether all of those things put together are worth the extra $80.

I really like my Kindle Voyage, but I can’t help but feel a little burned by this update to the mid-range device.

iMore’s OS X El Capitan first look ⇢

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Rene Ritchie:

As Snow Leopard refined and advanced Leopard, as Mountain Lion refined and advanced Lion, so too is OS X El Capitan intended to refine and advance last year’s OS X Yosemite. That means the focus isn’t on major redesigns or profound system-level changes, though there is a little of both to be found. Instead, Apple is making OS X smarter, and giving it considerably more polish.

For El Cap, that means new window management options, including an improved Mission Control and new Split View. The company has made Spotlight smarter and improved stock OS X apps like Notes, Safari, Mail, Maps, and Photos. They’ve enhanced performance, stability, and security—including bringing iOS graphics framework Metal to the Mac. They’ve even added new system fonts: San Francisco for alphabetic languages; Ping Fang for Chinese; tweaks to the Japanese system font, Hiragino Sans; and improved input methods for both Chinese and Japanese.

I for one welcome our new polish and stability overlords. The rest is just gravy.

WWDC 2015 Debrief

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On the whole, WWDC 2015 brought less news and less change than its two immediate predecessors. Apple is still on top of the world, but this year, it’s about refining and polishing, not wide-reaching changes.

That’s not to say there isn’t news to be talk about. As someone whose tablet is basically a Netflix machine most weeks, I’m excited Apple finally realized they can do cool things with it. Unshackling the iPad from the iPhone’s feature set is a huge change with tradition, and one I welcome.

watchOS (sigh) 2 is bringing all sorts of new functionality to Apple Watch, including native applications, third-party complications and more. While I’m academically excited about this news, I’m holding my breath to see how these chips fall. My guess is that while the apps will be far better than they are today, I won’t suddenly be using my Watch for far more than I do today.

OS X El Capitan looks like a Snow Leopard moment for the Mac. There’s good stuff in 10.11 — and I’ll be reviewing it again this year — but for the average user, I’m not sure there’s a ton to get worked up about. I don’t think that’s a problem, however. Some stability and some breathing room will be welcomed by many.

There’s no doubt that the thousands of developers flying home this weekend have a lot of work to do to get ready for iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. There’s no doubt that users will welcome the changes coming to their iOS devices, Macs and Watches, but from those I’ve spoken to this week in San Francisco, everyone’s less stressed than in the last couple of years. That’s a good thing, and I’m looking forward to an exciting — but not overwhelming — year on Apple’s platforms.

WWDC 2015’s videos

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For years, Apple has relied on videos to help tell the story of their products, but this year’s WWDC keynote videos were especially well-done. The entire keynote — including the hilarious intro video — can be seen over on Apple’s website.

The App Effect

In this film, Phil Schiller, Neil deGrasse Tyson and others talk about the importance of apps, not only to Apple’s platform, but to the way people work, play and live.

Apple Music – Music needed a home . . . so we built it one.

This video discusses that music shouldn’t be treated as data, but as art. Apple Music’s pillars of streaming, curation and artist communication are paired with Apple’s new worldwide radio station, Beats 1. This video does the best job explaining the full breadth of the offering — “one complete thought around music.”

Apple Music – Worldwide

This video focuses on Beats 1, Apple’s upcoming worldwide radio station. It bring back the joy that radio once had, before we could each build our own, isolated playlists. Radio can connect people, and this video tries to re-ignite that romanticism.

Apple Music – History of Sound

In many ways, this is my favorite of the four films. Starting in 1888, it builds a narrative saying that while the technology has changed, the medium of music remains special and powerful. I award bonus points not only for some sweet Walkman shots, but the inclusion of several old iPods and an iMac G4.

MultiPadding ⇢

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Dr. Drang, on the history of multitasking on Apple products:

When the iPad came out, it was deja vu all over again. One screen, one app. Before the end of 2010, iOS 4 provided the Switcher-like multitasking bar and the ability to quickly shift from one app to another. Still only one app on the screen at a time, though. And while the multitasking bar has grown from a strip of icons into a set of screenshots, it’s still more like the Switcher than the MultiFinder.

Until iOS 9.

Apple Kbase Article of the Week: Apple Maps vehicles ⇢

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In a week full of WWDC news, this new article jumped out at me:

Apple is driving vehicles around the world to collect data which will be used to improve Apple Maps. Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates.

We are committed to protecting your privacy while collecting this data. For example, we will blur faces and license plates on collected images prior to publication. If you have comments or questions about this process, please contact us.

See below for where we’re driving our vehicles next.