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iTunes 4.9 To Support Podcasting

Posted by Hemos on from the well-of-course-it-will dept.

WaRrK writes "O'Reilly Radar are reporting that in a demo at D: All Things Digital Conference, Steve Jobs showed off iTunes 4.9, which has support for iPodder like functionality. Although, he was "slightly" dismissive of the phenomena, describing it as "Wayne's World for radio". Also, whilst currently only supporting free content, they are not ruling out paid for podcasting in the future. iTunes 4.9 should be available within 60 days." Yeah, Steve's kinda right on this - podcasting is neat & all, but the breathy overstatement of how it will change our lives is a wee bit overdone.

12 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. podcasting, bah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I want DAB in the iPod

  2. It's an enabler... by eyegor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Given that Rush Limbaugh (love him or loathe him) is going to be making his broadcast available via podcast, you could change iTunes to allow downloading DRMed podcasts on a pay-per-download or a subscription basis either through the iTunes store or a third-party source.

    --

    Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
  3. Re:well.. by tbone1 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    so what's left for itunes 5?

    Video store. They've already got all the front-end functionality built into iTunes 4, so ...

    --

    The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
  4. Re:Reality Check by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Podcasting is a fad. It is new (as in new buzzword), uses a cool technolgy (iPods) and gives people something to do. Remember (or have you heard of) the pet rock, the hula hoop, Beanie Babies and Tickle-me Elmo? People jumped on the bandwagon, spent a lot of money buying these items and then realized - "This isn't that fun, that great or that cool. Why did I think it was?"

    Just put up with it for 6 more months and all the hype will die down. If it doesn't, then just make sure your own podcasts are about how podcasts are lame.

    --
    Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
  5. podcasting as timeshifting by ObjetDart · · Score: 5, Interesting
    While I agree it's not going to fundamentally change our lives, podcasting *has* fundamentally changed the way I listen to radio. By which I mean, it allows me to timeshift internet radio (there's basically no good FM radio where I live.)

    I get most of my new music by listening to KCRW (http://www.kcrw.org/online/). Since they are on the west coast and I'm on the east coast, a lot of their music shows are at inconvenient times for me. So, I wrote a little program that downloads the shows I like (they broadcast in MP3 format), and then I can copy them to my mp3 player and listen to the show whenever and wherever I like. This has allowed me to go from listening to KCRW only occasionally to catching every single one of my favorite programs.

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    I read Usenet for the articles.
  6. Wayne's World, Perhaps, But.. by Mean_Nishka · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The easier it gets to download podcasting content, the more likely people will actually listen to it. Including this functionality in iTunes will expand the audience and make it easier for average Joe computer user to sample of the content.

    It's only a matter of time before paid providers will see the value of this. Vidcasts (not podcasts) might be the killer app, but the media distribution has to begin somewhere :).

    --
    www.lonseidman.com

  7. Re:Reality Check by Billy+the+Mountain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not so dimissive. I think podcasting, even in it's current state, is cool. Just think how good it will be when some good content sources come on line. Personally, I find it a great antidote to a long commute. I've even considered developing my own podcasts teaching Perl, although I must admit it's pretty challenging thinking up useful content considering podcasts are all audio.

    --
    That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
  8. Re:well.. by StrawberryFrog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nice theory, but if that's true, why does the iPod support MP3

    Apple did not create the digital audio player market, they entered it. A new digital audio player that doesn't play the massive existing base of MP3s would be deader than a three-week old kipper. I would have thought that was blindingly self-evident.

    adding another format that no one uses is hardly going to hurt them

    MP3s are the bait, iTunes is the hook. A migration from MP3 to ogg just doesn't fit into that business plan. In fact, it may work against it. Before iTunes, AAC was a format that hardly anyone used. Apple would love people to migrate from old, smelly, boring MP3s to new, shining DRM's AACs.

    I'd buy an iPod instantly if it could play oggs, but I'm under no illusions that this will happen anytime soon.

    --

    My Karma: ran over your Dogma
    StrawberryFrog

  9. Re:Reality Check by kitzilla · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The problem with podcasting is music licensing: if you put music on a recording and distribute it, you're liable for ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC royalties. And this is reasonable. The composers wrote the songs, joined the association, and deserve to be paid for their work.

    Who has the infrastructure to account and pay for this sort of stuff? Professional broadcasters, mostly.

    This assumes the music was written by an association composer. Perhaps you have some unsigned band that has granted you permission to use their material. You're clean.

    Beyond music, there's spoken word. Performances have value, but many of the podcasts I've heard were more akin to written blogs than produced audio programming.

    What Apple could do here, if they're so inclined, is to swing a podcast deal with their labels. Music purchased from the iTunes store would be licensed for personal use as it is now and non-commercial podcasting. If iTunes could be retooled to record voice-overs -- and it sounds if that may be coming -- you could build a podcast within iTunes and distribute it via Apple's music store. The podcasts would be playable through iTunes.

    Apple's motivation in this is twofold: it would encourage podcasters to use Apple's platform and purchase their library through the Apple Store, and the podcast songs would be clickable. Listeners could buy whatever they like as they hear it.

    It's a proprietary solution, but would finesse the licensing issue and make music podcasting more accessable.

    --
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  10. All about timeshifting by useosx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I don't know about individuals' podcasts, but real radiostations are doing it too. It's the easiest way I know of to get time- and space-shifted radio shows.

    I totally agree. I can listen to the Democracy Now! Podcast anytime I want. On the subway, in the car, whenever. That means I can catch up on the events of the day during otherwise wasted time. This is huge for me. I repeat: otherwise wasted time affords me the opportunity to become a more informed citizen.

    Also, I visit a bunch of different new sites every day, and I find that the radio format is a much better way for me personally to take in information. I'm sure this is the same with many other people (but not all, of course). I get more out of listening to one Democracy Now! broadcast then I do reading a whole slew of print articles.

    And just because most self-produced stuff is crap, doesn't mean it will all be. Someone will come up with a smart way to filter the crap out. Someone always does.

    Furthermore, the arena is not just open to radio. Any kind of recorded audio--old lectures are also available. Say your favorite mathematician gave a famous lecture in 1986. Guess what? You can listen to it on the subway. Pretty damn cool if you ask me.

  11. Re:podCast for Lauguage Learning by johnrpenner · · Score: 3, Interesting


    i enjoy podcasting every day. :}
    learning a language is tricky, and berlitz tapes are boring.
    downloading a three minute podcast each day is a great way
    to learn or keep fresh on a language -- the one i've been
    enjoying most is the way this podcaster from munchen
    uses language -- the musicality of it.

    annik rubens - schlafloss in munchen

    what makes it so good for learning a language, is:

    1) because it is largely speech oriented, you get more
    dialogue to work with than regular radio which often uses
    dialogue as a seguay between musical segments.
    a three minute chunk is manageable for a daily thing.

    2) unlike live radio, you can rewind, and catch words
    and phrases that you missed.

    3) it stays fresh unlike stale old language learning tapes.

    podcasting really has opened up the language for me,
    because it can be hard to find good local speakers, and
    these are already encoded as mp3s so you can take it around
    on an ipod.

    in diese sinn...
    roland.

  12. Podcast is oldhat to us, but new/mystery to others by Absentminded-Artist · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Two things:
    1. I recently had a slightly difficult time getting the webmaster of a popular Country artist site to understand that linking a MP3 to a website doesn't make that MP3 a podcast. He was initially insulted by my suggestion he include an RSS feed to make the file a true podcast. Fortunately, there were plenty of links at http://www.ipodder.org/ to share with him that showed him how RSS is the magic ingredient. It wasn't that he couldn't roll RSS code; he was a competent coder. He, like most of the public out there, was simply misinformed. Let's face it, RSS is wicked geeky and trying to explain it to somebody is often an exercize in futility (See the end of Josh's vlog on the subject - lesson #4). After all, isn't Really Simple Syndication such an obvious sort of technology that you wonder why somebody had to invent it in the first place? ;)

      But if you want to see how completely the public misunderstands just what the heck a podcast is check out Bill Gate's first podcast as an example. The MEDC site refers to it as a "Video Podcast", but on film they just call it a podcast, so if you are new to podcasting then this is what you are going to think a podcast is: a video broadcast via WMV. Obviously there's a slight problem here in that podcasts are audio enclosures via RSS and vlogs are video enclosures via RSS. One could argue that this is a simply an exercize in semantics, or one could argure that Bill & Co. are once again trying to embrace and extend a technology/term for their own purposes. But the main result is that the common guy isn't going to have a clue about any of this. He only knows what he is told.

      So, IMO, iTunes adding podcast support is a really good thing. This will help solidify the meaning of the word "podcast" before more confusion sets in. (Of course, if Steve & Co. are also embracing and extending...)

    2. As for podcasts being "Wayne's World for radio", sometimes that is the case. If I have to download another walk to the (backyard shed, park, bigwig meeting, etc) soundseeing tour on Daily Source Code I will scream, or just not subscribe anymore. Vlogs can be just as bad. I've seen some kid animate her Barbies in a sordid romance, a guy video tape his trip home from work, and somebody wash their dirty sink to music. Not winning content by any means. However, like anything out there, there is crap and there is gold. And then there's the whole realm inbetween. YMMV, but podcasts are turning out to be an alternative form of entertainment. Don't write them off before trying out some of the more interesting ones. I wouldn't recommend sampling them at random if you don't have the time or patience to filter out the dross.

      I know that tech podcasts get covered here a lot. Maybe some of you might enjoy these music podcasts:
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    The Splintered Mind - Overcoming