Thoughts on the new iOS6 Podcast App

[sparky_1]

I think it blows.

Really, really blows.

Let’s see, it’s slow and sluggish.

To see available past episodes of a podcast, I have to Subscribe to it. Not so bad, but if I pick one from a few years ago to listen to, I still have to scroll past all those damn other episodes to actually play it.

Scrolling through available podcasts is clunky. In the past, I could go to the Top Ten area of iTunes and browse by subject. Now, it seems to limit me to a selection of five, and they load slooooooowly.

Playback is also clunky, in that the screen icons for fastforward/reverse haven’t been consistently working for me.

Ugh. I listen to a ton of podcasts through the day and really enjoyed the interface through iTunes. I hate when companies try to fix things that aren’t broken.

Anyone else having issues with this App? Does anyone have anything good to say?

Oh, and I’m experiencing this with an iPhone 4.

[Szlater]

@sparky_1

I think it blows.

Really, really blows.

Let’s see, it’s slow and sluggish.

The initial release was terrible, but it has actually got much better since iOS6 was released, IMO.

@sparky_1

To see available past episodes of a podcast, I have to Subscribe to it. Not so bad, but if I pick one from a few years ago to listen to, I still have to scroll past all those damn other episodes to actually play it.

Yeah that’s annoying, although not sure what they could do about it…if you use the ‘unplayed episodes’ tab that just lists all the unplayed podcasts that have been downloaded…much quicker than scrolling through all those undownloaded episodes.

@sparky_1

Scrolling through available podcasts is clunky. In the past, I could go to the Top Ten area of iTunes and browse by subject. Now, it seems to limit me to a selection of five, and they load slooooooowly.

Strange, I hit the catalog button and it lists hundreds of available podcasts in assorted categories. The comedy chart has 300 listed podcasts and it loaded almost instantly.

@sparky_1

Playback is also clunky, in that the screen icons for fastforward/reverse haven’t been consistently working for me.

Works fine on the 4S.

@sparky_1

Ugh. I listen to a ton of podcasts through the day and really enjoyed the interface through iTunes. I hate when companies try to fix things that aren’t broken.

Anyone else having issues with this App? Does anyone have anything good to say?

Oh, and I’m experiencing this with an iPhone 4.

I think the original interface was broken. You couldn’t subscribe and auto download through that, and people were complaining as it was ridiculous that you had to manually check and download your podcasts…especially as they were touting PC free use.

I was very disappointed with the initial releases but I think they have sorted most of my complaints, it’s not perfect yet though. Adding the refresh pull down was welcome, but would like to be able to do that for all my subs in one go rather than separately.

[sparky_1]

@Szlater

Snip…

Yeah that’s annoying, although not sure what they could do about it…if you use the ‘unplayed episodes’ tab that just lists all the unplayed podcasts that have been downloaded…much quicker than scrolling through all those undownloaded episodes.

…

Thanks! I didn’t see that option before.

[AaronX]

I’ve never used podcasts before, and just started using this app. It seems ok. Only thing I don’t like so far is you have to click through the speed control, you can’t directly choose a speed.

[dada2fish]

I have an app from the podcast “This American Life” that I use to listen to old episodes offline while I’m at work. It allowed me to retrieve an archived episode to listen to later on my Ipod Touch. Since the update, it doesn’t work anymore. I’m missing my American Life fix!