iOS 17 has cut Apple’s download numbers

How has iOS 17 affected downloads from Apple Podcasts? We look at stats from the biggest independent podcast company in “The Tech Stuff”

• Podcast app Castro is “actively seeking a new home with new owners”. Last week, we reported that Mohit Mamoria, a former Castro employee who works for Tiny, Castro’s current owners, said it was to close; but “any communication or publication regarding the app’s future is not official and does not represent Castro’s views” said the blog post. The blog post was the first for three years, and did not have a named author. (The app is now working again after an extended outage last week.)

• One popular feature that Castro has is “mix to mono”. The good news is that this is built-in to your phone or computer: here’s how to enable mono listening. Fun discovery: if you wear AirPods or Pixel Buds, wearing just one earbud will automatically mix everything to mono.

• Listeners can now add RSS podcasts in the YouTube Music app on all platforms, including iOS. Our own RSS2YTM website will help you/them add your favourite shows.

• Remote recording tool Riverside has released a new iOS app.

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• Spotify for Podcasters was responsible for 30% of all new episodes published in November, according to Livewire’s data.

• AntennaPod 3.2.0 was released. The Android app has improved accessibility and added a “boost” option in the volume settings.

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• Buzzsprout has released the company’s stats for November, allowing us to look a little more closely at the performance of Apple Podcasts since the iOS17 changes in mid September.

  • Comparing August with November, Buzzsprout published roughly the same amount of active podcasts (up by 0.1%), and roughly the same amount of new episodes (down by 0.8%). In spite of a US holiday period, there’s very little change in total production.
  • Total downloads, however, are another story. Total downloads for all apps in Nov are down 16% vs Aug. Splitting those out by app:
    Pocket Casts is up slightly (0.5%) for total downloads.
    Overcast is down 2.6%.
    Spotify is down 14%.
    Google Podcasts is down 15%.
    Apple Podcasts is down 24%.
  • For downloads by countries, the effect of Thanksgiving is clear. The US has dropped to a share of 47.1% of all downloads, down from August’s 49.7%. But in total downloads, all countries have seen falls.
    UK is down 13.1% for total downloads
    Canada is down 14%
    Australia is down 17.9%
    US is down 20.4%.
  • In summary, then: total podcast downloads in November were in decline vs August. Some of that is due to the US’s Thanksgiving; but a decrease in downloads is happening in most countries too. And it’s not exclusively an issue with Apple Podcasts: but these numbers show Apple Podcasts is significantly underperforming all other apps.

• We - and the podcast community - would welcome more podcast companies being open and transparent with their data like Buzzsprout is able to. Please.

• OP3 reports that by the end of November, more than two-thirds of all unique listeners using iOS were from iOS 17. For much of the month, though, it was just over 35%; so December may give us even clearer indications.

• The Podcast Index API now has a “top recommended” list for podcasts, using the podroll feature. We wouldn’t mind it if you added Podnews Daily to your podroll, if your podcast host supports it (like Buzzsprout).

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