Apple’s Losing Its Podcast Legacy — Why It Matters, and How to Save It
When Serial launched in 2014 and propelled the growth of podcasts as a medium, the Podcasts app on iPhone was only two years old. At the time, Apple held over 80% market share of total podcast consumption, Spotify did not offer podcasts in their app (that launched in 2015), and video podcasts on YouTube weren’t a thing.
Ten years later, Apple has lost its lead in the podcast industry and must decide if it values the medium as much as its competitors.
Before Serial, only 30% of Americans had ever listened to a podcast. Today, over 70% of Americans have listened to one, and 55% are monthly consumers. Despite many articles over the years claiming “podcasting is dead,” it continues to grow in consumption, and its influence shouldn’t be understated. The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election has even been called the “podcast election.”
While Apple may be able to claim it took podcasting mainstream in 2005, with Steve Jobs showing off the iTunes feature at D3 Conference, they now sit in a distant third place for podcast consumption. Across Edison, Cumulus, and Triton Digital metrics, YouTube claims approx 35% of total podcast consumption, Spotify 25%, and Apple around 10%. If you consider audio-only podcasts, Apple Podcasts is still the number one app, but increasingly people want video. Especially younger demographics.
Not only has Apple lost market share of podcast consumption, it has also fallen behind Spotify and YouTube in building great tools for creators. The last time Apple mentioned podcasts in a keynote was 2021, when Tim Cook announced a redesign of the Podcasts app and paid subscriptions. That portion didn’t even warrant a chapter marker on YouTube.
Screenshot of Apple’s April 2021 event on YouTube
Meanwhile, Spotify offers free podcast hosting, paid subscriptions, ways for listeners to engage by Q&A, and allows podcast creators, whether they host with Spotify or not, to upload full video versions of their episodes for free. Creators can even upload vertical clips of their show with the hopes of being discovered in Spotify’s TikTok-like video feed.
YouTube has increasingly added podcast-centric features, and is the number one place people consume and find new podcasts. YouTube claims over 1 billion people watch podcast content on its platform every month.
So, why does it matter for Apple to retain its influence in the podcasting space?
First, the core beauty of podcasting as a medium is its open nature. The RSS standard continues to power podcasting, and continues to innovate. Transcripts, live streams, and now even video is supported through open standards for any podcast feed. In a world with increasing paywalls and closed ecosystems, it is important for a standard like RSS to persist.
Apple has long been a champion for RSS standards, and even kept things like its podcast database open and accessible to third-party services. Apple also adopted transcripts via RSS, allowing creators to provide their own even when Apple began auto-generating transcripts for all shows.
Second, there have been several attempts to close the podcast ecosystem. Luminary tried it first, then Spotify. Thankfully, both failed. But as the medium continues to grow and turn to video, there needs to be an influential arbiter who can pull in the direction of podcasts staying “open.”
Even now, the video aspect of podcasts is closed to each platform. If I upload my video podcast to YouTube, that’s where you have to consume it. Same with Spotify. Apple needs to be the third player, not just for audio-only shows, but video too. (And before you say Apple supports video shows, read on).
Third, Apple has long been the company that made great tools for creators. It blew my mind that GarageBand and iMovie came with my G4 PowerBook. And even now, many Apple events tout the power of iPhone, iPad, and Mac as professional tools for creators of all kinds.
While it seems like the features announced last week are improving Apple Podcasts, they are problematic in a few ways. First is Timed Links.
Starting with iOS 26.2, podcast creators can add links to a chapter, or link any timestamp they place in the episode description. Those links will appear as a pop-up on the Now Playing screen, in-line with the transcript, and in a “From this Episode” section at the bottom of every show.
Timed Links on the Now Playing screen of Apple Podcasts
One big caveat to this feature is that it will only work when linking to Apple’s own content. From Apple’s article:
When you provide links in your episodes to Apple services such as Apple Books, Apple Music Classical, Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Podcasts, Apple Sports, Stocks, Apple TV, and Shazam they’ll be displayed in Apple Podcasts
Apple has often taken advantage of its platform to push its own services, like the immortal badge on Settings for Apple Care+, or the F1 notification that came through Wallet. Timed Links are similar, but slightly more heinous. Not only does this feature work solely on Apple content, but it’s ignoring an open RSS protocol that other apps have supported for years.
Creators have long been able to add links to a chapter, apps like Pocket Casts, Overcast, and Castro support them now. You can try it with Primary Technology, every chapter has a link.
Link on a chapter in Pocket Casts
Apple is making links more discoverable with this update, but only links that serve Apple. Links to anything else, an article from Inc, YouTube video, etc., will not appear in Apple Podcasts. This may be the first time Apple has not only ignored an open-standard RSS feature, but actively commandeered it for its own purposes.
The second is chapters. Chapters are an open standard with RSS and Apple Podcasts has long supported them. Now, Apple will auto-generate chapters for all podcasts (unless creators opt-out).
On the face it, this is fine. I’m curious how large shows like SmartLess, with dynamically inserted ads, will treat chapters or if they will opt-out from the beginning. And if they leave the chapters, will Apple Podcasts make a chapter that says, “ads” or “sponsor break” allowing listeners to easily skip forward?
I doubt the big shows will allow that.
But this chapter update also, finally, brings chapters to subscriber audio. In Apple Podcasts, creators can offer paid-for content, like bonus episodes or ad-free versions, and that audio is labeled “Subscriber Audio." Up until now, there was no way to deliver chapters in subscriber audio.
The same MP3 file that I embed ID3 chapter tags and deliver to Patreon, Memberful, Supercast, or any other paid-for podcast platform, would get stripped of those chapters when uploaded to Apple Podcasts Connect.
Why? I have no idea. Apple is not applying any “enhancement” to the audio file, and the sometimes 30-minute “processing” that an audio file goes through does nothing noticeable, except strip my chapters from the episode.
That means everyone who pays to support my podcast in Apple Podcasts, gets a worse experience than those who get it for free. No chapters, or chapter artwork, in subscriber audio.
I assumed the latest announcement, which explicitly states subscriber audio gets chapters, would fix the problem. But due to the implementation, it appears not. I explain in detail here if you’d like to see me crash out.
Bottom line, Apple has long been the benevolent arbiter of podcasts for almost two decades. In recent years they have fallen behind in market share as a consumption platform, in tools offered to creators, and they are positioned to lose even more influence in the podcast industry as whole. And as I mentioned, podcasting is important now more than ever.
Here’s what Apple should do:
Launch Podcasts App on Android
A big reason Spotify and YouTube have gained so much audience share is their ubiquity. They’re available on every platform, easy to share, and have better discovery mechanisms than Apple Podcasts. Podcasts on the web won’t cut it. Apple brought TV and Music apps to Android, Podcasts should be next.
Better Creator Tools
Podcasts Connect is antiquated and difficult to use, especially if you’re offering subscriber audio. Let me set an episode to publish automatically when it’s done “processing,” so I don’t have to use an AI browser to babysit the dashboard.
Allow creators to communicate with their supporters as well. Every podcast where I’ve offered paid content through a third party, like Memberful, and offer the same benefits through Apple Podcasts, more people sign up through Apple.
I would too! It’s faster, easier, a user’s subscription is with all the other App Store subscriptions, it’s easy to offer free trials, etc. The problem is, I have no way of communicating with those supporters.
When I wanted to offer a free pin to Primary Technology listeners, I could only contact those who support through Memberful. I understand it’s because of privacy and security, but there should at least be a way to send a message to those paying customers.
Add Audience Engagement
One of the biggest challenges podcast creators face is where to engage with their listeners. YouTube solved this with comments, Spotify also has a Q&A feature where listeners can engage directly in the app. Apple should add a similar mechanism.
Properly Add Video Support
Yes, creators can add a video RSS feed to Apple Podcasts right now. The TWiT network has done this for years, but it’s untenable for smaller creators to manage multiple RSS feeds, and it’s a bad experience for audience members.
Double shows are required for creators who offer audio and video in Apple Podcasts
Hosting that much video content and its related cost should not be a concern. Spotify allows me to upload a 6GB video file and attach it to each episode for free.
Allow creators to upload a video file per episode so there can be one show in the Apple Podcasts library that offers both video and audio together. Then a podcast consumer can choose which to play on the fly. The Podcasts app has existed on Apple TV for years too, make it make sense.
Fix the ‘Up Next’ Queue
Pocket Casts and Overcast gets it right. The Up Next Queue and Continue Playing list existing simultaneously in the Podcasts app is confusing. Episodes will sometimes be both currently playing and in the queue, and you can’t drag episodes from one section to the other.
Apple Podcasts’ Up Next Queue
Stop Stripping Chapters from Subscriber Audio
I have yet to get confirmation, but if I’m right about the implementation of chapters in subscriber audio, that will be a huge miss. If a creator uploads an audio file with embedded chapters via ID3 tags or podlove, just deliver that file to paying subscribers without messing with the chapters.
It may be too late to reclaim the number one spot in podcast consumption, but Apple can still preside as the benevolent arbiter of the medium. Plus, it can and should continue supporting RSS as a viable open standard. One of the few we have left.
Apple’s 2005 newsroom article opens by saying:
Apple today announced it is taking Podcasting mainstream by building everything users need to discover, subscribe, manage and listen to Podcasts right into iTunes
I’m asking that once again, Apple build everything users (and creators) need to discover, subscribe, manage and listen to Podcasts.
