Apple Podcasts
Hosting platforms · Listening apps
Address: 
1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014, USA
Apple Podcasts is an audio streaming service and media player application developed by Apple Inc. for playing podcasts. Apple began supporting podcasts with iTunes 4.9 released in June 2005 and launched its first standalone mobile app in 2012. The app was later pre-installed with iOS beginning October 2014. The Apple Podcasts directory features more than two million shows. Apple Podcasts is available on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, CarPlay, visionOS, Microsoft Windows operating systems, web browsers, and on Amazon Alexa devices. Wikipedia
Website: www.apple.com
Owned by: Apple
Latest news
- Oct 3: Apple Podcasts launched Series Essentials in the app in the US, Australia/NZ, Canada and the UK. The editorial feature is built to spotlight serialised storytelling. During October, these shows will be ad free on Apple Podcasts.
- Sep 29: The Charlie Kirk Show, which has been #1 in Apple Podcasts for much of the previous few weeks, will continue with a set of rotating hosts, according to an appearance by his widow Erika Kirk.
- Sep 23: A developer called Matthew Brunelle has worked out how to change the code for Pocket Casts to remove the advertising. The apps were made open-source by current owners Automattic, which makes it relatively easy (and legal) to do so. However, the app will still use proprietary Pocket Casts servers; and for now, you’ll need to be an Android developer to rebuild the app in this way. In any case, this seems to punish the company for making the apps open-source, which has accelerated a number of new features. Better to use AntennaPod or Apple Podcasts... or, better still, support the developers by paying for it, we think.
- Sep 22: After the popular app Pocket Casts added ads for free users in its latest update, the r/pocketcasts subreddit has been full of less than complimentary feedback. The ads (both for Pocket Casts Plys and for other apps) appear in the playback screen and podcast lists. While you can remove the ads by paying for the app, for a similar experience you can also switch to the free Apple Podcasts (on iOS) or AntennaPod (on Android), neither of which contain advertising.
- Sep 8:
Exclusive: Apple Podcasts is getting ready to support the Podcasting 2.0 JSON chapters feature. The company quietly added documentation for
podcast:chaptersto its RSS specification page, but appears to have removed it again over the weekend, once it was noticed on social media. Here’s what it looked like. The tool, dubbed “super chapters” by some, includes “time-synced images and links”, as well as allowing podcasters to change and add to chapters without changing the audio file.
Data credits: Google Maps, Podnews newsletter, Wikipedia