iOS 16.4 Includes New Apple Podcasts App Features Across iPhone and CarPlay

Always great to have improvements. There’s one simple improvement I wish Apple’s Podcasts app had that Spotify has. When you go to a show that you’re following’s list of episodes, I wish it would take you to the episode you last were listening to.

For podcasts that have had hundreds of episodes and that still have hundreds of episodes before I’m caught up, I have to go scrolling, scrolling, scrolling just to find the last episode I just listened to so I can find the next episode that was released to either play it now or save it to my saved podcasts list.

It’s so inefficient, cumbersome, and not user friendly. This feels like a perfect example of it seeming like Apple designers/developers don’t actually use their services apps.

Yes, we should be able to follow the podcasts in sequence and not simply have the newest one listed first.

I have not liked how Podcast syncs across the Apple platform. I cannot easily start listening on my iPhone and then finish listening on my iPad or Mac. Yes, I can use handoff, but that's not what I want. Often when I'm using the iPhone Podcast, I may put it down after I've arrived in my office, then a few hours later, open up Podcast app on my iPad to continue listening to the episode wherever I left off. Can't do that easily because this doesn't sync. To have this do it more automatically, I have to return to the episode on my iPhone, play the episode, and while the screen is still on, go to my iPad to click on the continuity icon for the Podcast. Dumb.

Just sync the darn thing totally across all devices, from timepoints to episodes played and playing.

Always great to have improvements. There’s one simple improvement I wish Apple’s Podcasts app had that Spotify has. When you go to a show that you’re following’s list of episodes, I wish it would take you to the episode you last were listening to.

For podcasts that have had hundreds of episodes and that still have hundreds of episodes before I’m caught up, I have to go scrolling, scrolling, scrolling just to find the last episode I just listened to so I can find the next episode that was released to either play it now or save it to my saved podcasts list.

It’s so inefficient, cumbersome, and not user friendly. This feels like a perfect example of it seeming like Apple designers/developers don’t actually use their services apps.

Thank goodness. The Podcast app really needs some love.

It would be nice if it could integrate with the existing Tesla Apple music app

Music and Podcasts, while both audio, are very different media and listening experiences. A music apps UI and management are a poor mix for podcasts. Spotify is the poster child for that problem.

It would be better if Teslas would just allow CarPlay like most other auto manufacturers so that users could control and manage the apps themselves.

Right? And what the hell is the "Play Next" and "Play Last" command? Ok, I know what they are but it is an asinine way to add items to your queue.

Take for an example a podcast that has 4 episodes that are meant to be listened to in chronological order. In order for me to add each item in a way that enters the queue in the right fashion, I'll first go to the last episode, then click "Play Next" and do that for the next one. So essentially I'm adding in reverse chronological order in order to get them to play in chronological order. There are other ways to add these episodes, but none that I know of in which the order you add them is the order they would play without having to do some tricks with Play Next or Play Last. It's crazy.

Yes, I know you can visually resort them once added to the list, but that's doing double work. Once you add them you have to go in again to re-order them? Nah. There's got to be a better way to do this with a better User Interface.

All of this stuff literally worked better in 2005 when Apple first added podcasts to iTunes and had them sync with the iPods of the time

I also never had a single problem with apple’s 30 pin connector, and have yet to have a single device with lightning not fail on me. (I can only think of a single USB device that’s failed me.)

It blows my mind that they keep making podcast support worse over the last 18 years

And why the heck don’t they have the ability to establish a syncing relationship with a PC without USB? This is well within their capabilities to do that simply and securely.

I’m going to be messing with VLC…actually, on the suggestion of Bing’s chat A.I. I use VLC constantly on windows, but I haven’t really used it on iOS except messing with it years ago, and it looks like MAYBE if I’m lucky it actually would more or less have the capabilities I need in a podcast client, if my iPhone 13’s lightning port is dead already 😡