Feed Me

So, iTunes 4.9 has podcasting.¹ Some people love this addition; others hate it. You can put me in the former camp, but (since it wouldn’t be me if this weren’t the case) with reservations.

What’s good? It’s an all-in-one solution for audio-only feeds; radio shows, basically. Brent Simmons thinks there’s still a place for standalone newsreaders like NetNewsWire, and while would expect the creator of such a program to say that, I’m still inclined to agree. A feed that mostly consists of other content, with the occasional audio piece, isn’t suited for iTunes (which is, let’s not forget, a music program, not a newsreader or web browser).

Obviously if, like Sven-S. Porst, you “hate radio”, then the attractions of podcasting will be rather less than if, like me, you’re a radio junkie. It may well be that Herr Porst is simply unfortunate in this regard, having not been exposed (like the luckier souls among us) to Radio 4 from a young age. The BBC is currently in the midst of a download trial that includes not only the free downloads of the BBC Philharmonic’s performances of Beethoven’s symphonies, but also podcasts of some fantastic radio programmes. Immediately after installing iTunes 4.9, I added three of these feeds: In Our Time, Today, and From Our Own Correspondent. I should note that these three programmes are superior to pretty much anything you will ever see on television on the subjects in question. Despite the ascendency of the idiot box, radio—due to the absence of distractions, the need to find ways to interest the listener other than flashy graphics and attractive people, and the BBC’s commitment to incredibly high-quality public service broadcasting—is able to, on the whole, do debate, political commentary, and indeed reporting in general, much better than television. I would far rather listen to Today or PM than watch any television news programme, even the superior Channel 4 News. I would far rather listen to Start the Week, In Our Time, or Front Row than any supposedly highbrow programming on TV.

With these tendencies in mind, it becomes obvious why I like podcasting: it allows me to listen to shows I’ve missed, for whatever reason, with the fine-grained control one gets with a download but not with “internet radio”, i.e. streaming media files. Moreover, I can keep the downloads. Storage is cheap, and given that fairly often I want to refer back to something I’ve heard on the radio, I can now do so. Perhaps not with the greatest of ease, admittedly, but at least it’s possible.

Given, then, that I’m on board with podcasting, at least insofar as it applies to BBC radio programmes, why iTunes? There are two answers to this. Firstly, as an iPod owner, I organise and listen to all my music with it anyway. Secondly, it’s convenient: it’s an all-in-one package. I don’t need an aggregator and a media player, and I don’t need to fiddle with things. It’s not quite one click, but it’s close. Obviously I’d heard a fair bit of yammering about podcasting before this, but quite simply, I couldn’t be bothered. Now, two things have happened: the content I want is there, and the software I want is there. In both cases these are not perfect situations: the BBC download trial is quite limited, with only a few programmes on offer, and iTunes implementation of podcasting could (as others have noted) definitely be improved. However, they are good enough.

Briefly, then, the problems. Firstly, and bizarrely, you can’t remove the podcast option from the ‘Source’ menu in iTunes. All the crap that menu is infested with when one first installs iTunes can be got rid of, except that. Not a problem for me, as I’m using the option, but I have no doubt it’s immensely irritating for those who aren’t. What else… well, the icon is pretty stupid. As a Windows user, however, I’m of the school of thought that a silly icon does not a bad program make. Porst discusses a number of problems, but being a horribly lazy person I’ll just let you read his essay for yourself and work out which criticisms are valid and which aren’t; as far as I’m concerned, while Apple clearly have some work to do, iTunes’ podcasting feature does not die a death from a thousand cuts, but your mileage may vary.