Filed under: iTunes, Podcasting
iTunes podcasting support leaves me wanting
There has been a lot of talk as of late about iTunes and how much it sucks. While I don't think iTunes sucks, in
general, people tend to complain about things that they care about . It is clear that people enjoy iTunes and they are
interested in having it become even better.One of the more recent additions to iTunes is the much ballyhooed support for Podcasts, which I didn't see much use for until recently. I have gotten hooked on a number of vlogs and it is clear to me that iTunes has a ways to go before it gets podcasts right.
My first bone of contention is notifications, or lack there of, that I have a new podcast waiting for me. Sure, if I am in the Podcast section of iTunes I can see that lovely little blue circle that denotes new content, but most of the time I am in my Library. The picture that accompanies this post is a screenshot of my copy of iTunes. I have a few new Podcasts waiting for me, but how would you know that by looking at the source list? Apple should add a little numerical tag next to 'Podcasts' that let's you know at a glance how many podcasts you have waiting for you.
I can't be the only iTunes user who is annoyed by this, can I?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Derek said 10:40PM on 12-28-2005
I agree that would be a nice feature for the next major X.0 release. Perhaps the second week of January we will see something.
The worst feature for me is how they handle videos in the lower left corner. It's totally annoying and completely unlike any other Mac program I've ever used. That needs to be priority number one.
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umijin said 10:41PM on 12-28-2005
Hmmm - I'm not worried about the number of podcasts waiting for me. I'm worried about old podcasts not being deleted long after they are heard. Waste of HD space!
I have the 'keep unplayed episodes' option selected in the podcast settings, along with 'download latest episode'. So, one would think that old podcasts would be deleted after you've listed to them. But that isn't happening, with exception of my iPod. Pretty much all of them are sitting there in my library. What's up with this?!
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Oly said 10:49PM on 12-28-2005
#2 agreed. i think what itunes needs is the ability to have subscription-by-subscription options. so for one id be able to have it only keep the one most recent and another id be able to keep all of them. seems very doable.
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ThePete said 10:51PM on 12-28-2005
I agree--that is lame. However, I wish I could just have iTunes automatically update certain podcasts without having to wipe out previous podcasts the first time I do it. Today I tried to set it up so that iTunes auto-syncs a handful of my podcasts but iTunes then threatens me with "All existing podcasts on the iPod will be replaced with podcasts from your iTunes library."
I have podcasts on my iPod that I've deleted from my HD. Why can't it just add podcasts and let me delete?
Honestly, I feel like iTunes does too much, too. It now syncs iCal and address book, but I thought iSync did that. Also, my iPod keeps spitting out the wrong times for my iCal reminders. At 6pm I'll get something telling me that it's 11am, time to start work on my novel, or whatever. Can anyone tell me how to turn off iCal on the iPod? I've already told iTunes to stop syncing, but that's not enough, apparently...
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epple said 10:51PM on 12-28-2005
I most strongly agree with umijin about iTunes seeming to not accurately the physical files to what appears in the iTunes library when it comes to podcasts.
A little issue I've found is that recently I bought my first music and video from the iTMS, when finished it's download iTunes reminds me to back up my files, and being a .Mac member I know that it's BackUp app has an automatic setting to back up all purchased music files, and I was curious if it would back up my video as well. Well it did, ALL OF IT. Every single video I had encoded using QTPro for iPod setting are labelled in the back up as well. This needs to be fixed ASAP.
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tom Ligman said 10:57PM on 12-28-2005
I'd like it if it could track "unplayed" separately for separate iPods. My wife and I can't sync to the same computer any more, since we have some overlap in our favorite podcasts. It would also be nice to have more choices for sync behavior without resorting to smart playlists.
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Peter said 10:59PM on 12-28-2005
That would be nice. I have one gripe about photos on an iPod with Video. I would really like it to show all of my photos in the folders that they are in a subfolder of My Pictures (that doesn't sound too well written to me so let me explain. In my "My Pictures" folder, I have three folders, one for each of my cameras. These are the only folders that show up on my iPod, the photos inside these folders [which are neatly organized by the place that they were taken] are all jumbled up). That is annoying when trying to find photos.
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Rob Ya said 11:05PM on 12-28-2005
The thing with podcasts is that eventually the only devices around used to access podcasts are cell phones. Live software may be the future; mobile access is key though. Google's acquisition of Android is an evidence. Any enterprise that can take grip of this enormous, ripe market will be able to garner substantial profit. The emergence of cell phone jammers, however, pose more questions than many care to answer. For details, check out 安特易屏蔽器.
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Shig the Unmentionable said 11:08PM on 12-28-2005
iTunes is starting to suffer from feature creep. It started life as a jukebox program, and a damned good one, but over time it's become a file manager, a web browser, an RSS client, and most recently a video viewer. When they first appeared, a lot of those features feel like they were rushed out the door before they were quite ready. I hate to say it, but Apple is starting to remind me of... of... No, I can't bring myself to say it.
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tony said 11:14PM on 12-28-2005
Peter, I use Picasa and I have itunes syncing my My Pictures folder. That is the root for Picasa also. It keeps everything neat and tidy, and I always have the latest pics on my 60GB 5G.
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Jack said 11:18PM on 12-28-2005
Oh yeah... and that's the exact reason why I don't listen to my podcasts...
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icerabbit said 11:34PM on 12-28-2005
I would prefer iTunes to keep podcasts in a seperate library and folder. Plus for the podcasts not to show clutter the main library.
Just stick all podcasts in a different folder, like iTunes > Podcasts
Podcasts are not music; and they are temporary in nature. So please enable keeping them separate from ripped audio cds & purchased music.
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Mac Diva said 12:25AM on 12-29-2005
Maybe it is just me, but I'm annoyed by having podcasts turn up in multiple places. For example, if I download a new digital album from iTMS, and it happens that podcasts were updated at the same time, a podcast can interrupt the music if the Recent Additions playlist is being used. It will be counted as next recent instead of the next song on the album. I also have to track down video podcasts because they don't always go into the podcasts folder, but into videos, recently played, purchased or whereever.
There needs to be main listings for Audio, Video, Podcasts and Photos, with items falling under no more than two of them.
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macdude148 said 1:05AM on 12-29-2005
Video playback in iTunes seems to be much more sluggish and unresponsive compared with QuickTime. Does anyone else notice this?
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Steve Rhodes said 1:06AM on 12-29-2005
Yes, there are a lot of problems with the way iTunes handles podcasts/vlogs.
There should be an easy way to see the latest podcasts which have been added.
There are some podcasts that are timely I want to listen to right away. There are others I can listen to anytime, so I don't want to iTunes to stop getting the podcast just because I haven't listened to it recently. That is really, really annoying. Particularly if I miss a podcast.
And I should have the option of keeping some podcasts on my ipod and deleting others.
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Andy Fragen said 2:33AM on 12-29-2005
Smart Playlists are your friend.
Simply create a live updating smart playlist that will 'catch' all your podcasts then create a second smart playlist whose 'playlist is smart playlist 1' and 'play count is greater than 0'
Now you've got all your podcasts in one place and all the podcasts to be deleted in another.
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Bob said 2:46AM on 12-29-2005
It is impossible to contact one of you contributors so I'll post it in here.
Not terribly new but old funny apple support calls.
http://colo.slacker.com/apple-support-calls//
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apainter said 9:48AM on 12-29-2005
I'd had several issues with the Podcasting section as well. Other than the video podcasts not getting placed properly, I've been most annoyed that when a podcast download fails out, iTunes often won't notice and will just accept the incomplete files, then if you removed the incomplete file, there is no mechanism in iTunes to re-download a podcast. The coupled with some fun UI stuff just makes it such a drag compared to the rest of the program.
And yes, video playback really sucks compared to how QT plays back the indentical files.
The program needs an overhaul instead of a feature-add every few months.
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Al said 8:27PM on 12-29-2005
How about, instead of whining, you actually do something about it? It takes half an hour to learn enough Applescript to accomplish a solution. Why are you moaning about a free product when you can implement a fix yourself quite easily?
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Scott McNulty said 12:39AM on 12-30-2005
Al, sure I could write an Applescript to do this, but why should I? This is an obvious shortcoming in the UI and I think iTunes would be a better program with this slight addition.
I hope you aren't one of those folks that things everything from Apple is flawless.
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