Digital Lifestyles Reference Guide

Podcasting Features in Apple's iTunes

Last updated Jul 1, 2005.

Up until the release of iTunes 4.9, Mac and Windows users interested in subscribing to podcasts needed to navigate a series of somewhat convoluted steps in order to find interesting topics, subscribe to a favorite show, listen to the shows on a computer, or transfer the shows from a computer to a portable music player. If you don't currently own an iPod, the process of transferring podcasts to a portable player is still less than optimal. For the millions of iPod owners, Apple just made podcasting easy from a listeners perspective.

After updating to iTunes 4.9, you immediately see a subtle difference in the player. The source list now includes a Podcasts option in addition to the Music Store, Radio, Audible, and assorted playlist options. This is the default location in your iTunes Library where all podcasts subscribed from the iTunes music store will appear in iTunes.

Clicking Podcast Directory directly below the list of currently subscribed podcasts launches the podcast section of the iTunes Music Store.

The store includes thousands of free podcasts from independent voices like Dave Slusher's Evil Genius Chronicles to more widely recognized names like ESPN, Disney, and WGBH. Find something you like by searching the directory by topic. Just like shopping for songs in the Music Store, you can preview a podcast by double clicking on the show name, playing the latest audio selection from that show. If you like what you hear, subscribe to the show by clicking the subscribe button or grab an individual episode from the track list below. iTunes will ask you to verify whether you really want to subscribe or not, which is dismissed by either clicking Subscribe or Cancel depending on your preference.

Once subscribed to a podcast, iTunes begins downloading the most recent episodes from the podcast. The little orange icon next to the podcast indicates downloading is in progress. By default, iTunes is set to download only the most recent episode, so your hard drive won't get filled with past shows.

By clicking the settings tab in the Podcasts source screen, you can adjust some of the options regarding subscriptions, download frequency and archiving. Checking for new episodes is configurable for Every Hour, Every Day, Every Week or Manually. When iTunes finds a new episode for a podcast, it will either download the most recent episode, download all available episodes, or do nothing. Archiving keeps All Episodes by default but may be configured to keep a specific number of episodes or to only keep unheard episodes.

In addition to this one-click subscribe process, which vastly improves the user experience in interacting with podcast subscriptions, Apple went to some lengths to make iPod integration better than previous third-party implementations. On the Podcasts Settings page, an iPod Preferences button links directly to the configurable options for Podcasts. These settings are also configured by clicking directly on the iPod Settings tab and selecting Podcasts. The iPod Settings default to "Do not update Podcasts." Depending on your personal preference, you may instead choose to Automatically update all Podcasts, which transfers every episode of every podcast to your iPod. A third option is to select specific podcasts which automatically sync to your iPod.

Further iPod customization is available by selecting Only checked episodes, Only most recent episode, or Only unplayed episodes. The unplayed episodes option seems to be less than perfect because if you play a few seconds of an episode it is marked as played and won't get transferred (hopefully this gets fixed in future releases). Of course, further customization is possible by using your own Smart Playlists to define synchronization criteria.

While I would consider some aspects of Apple's podcast integration beta, with high hopes for future improvement with options to make a one-click subscription directly from the Web, iTunes 4.9 is by far the best solution available to both Mac and Windows users for managing the flood of new podcasts emerging daily. Instead of needing a five or six step process to get the podcast you want transferred to your iPod, Apple makes it possible to subscribe and sync without ever leaving the iTunes interface. If you're reading this as the owner of some other portable device, you may want to consider iTunes as the subscription solution for your tracks and then point Windows Media Player at the iTunes Podcasts folder for synchronization because iTunes really makes the subscribe process significantly better.