Podcaster: So good, Apple won't let you have it
Podcaster lets you subscribe to podcasts from your iPhone.
Correction: The price of the app has been corrected from the original post.
Apple has told Alex Sokirynsky that he cannot distribute his Podcaster app for iPhone via the Apple iTunes store since, he reports, "it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes." This is a crime that Apple is perpetrating on iPhone users, and it is a lie, since Podcaster does something iTunes doesn't do, and it adds real functionality to the iPhone that lots of people, like me, really want.
Read more: Tom Krazit's Apple to Podcaster: No App Store for you.
Podcaster lets you sign up for podcasts from your iPhone. You can then stream them, or download them to your phone for later listening when you are offline (like on an airplane). Apple's own iTunes software (which runs on Windows and Mac PCs, not the phone itself) lets you subscribe to podcasts, but the only way to get them onto your phone is to sync it with your computer. If you're out and about without a computer (or, like me, your travel laptop doesn't have your installation of iTunes), you can't update your podcasts. And that, my friends, sucks.
Podcaster is the solution to Apple's oversight. It works well, even if it isn't all that pretty. You can search for podcasts by name, and the system will download the titles of recent episodes. If you hit play on an episode, the product streams the podcast from its source. (It uses the YouTube player, so the interface rotates to landscape mode whether you like it or not.) Or, as I said, you can tag individual podcasts for downoad--but not a whole series.
Once you subscribe to a podcast, you can view all the episodes, and then either stream or download them.
The app is "sandboxed" on the iPhone, so it has no knowledge of podcasts subscribed to from your iTunes account. Nor can you play your Podcaster podcasts from within iTunes. And it's not nearly as pretty as iTunes is. It's also got a few bugs. But it is highly functional, and useful.
And although Apple doesn't want you to have it, you can still get it, at least for now. Sokirynsky is sending it to people using a workaround Apple created to let developers distribute iPhone apps to testers. Go to www.nextdayoff.com for an e-mail form. You will eventually need your phone's UDID number, which is easy to get: See these instructions from TUAW.com.
The app is $9.95 (via PayPal donation). Sokirynsky notes that Apple has the capability to remotely disable apps, though, and I would not be surprised to see Apple turn this app off considering that it's being distributed outside of Apple's own marketplace. I also have heard that there may be a cap on the number of copies of an app that can be distributed with this workaround.
I'll spare you the paragraphs of righteous indignation I could write about how Apple is dealing with this. I'll just say: Apple, I'm very disappointed. You should do better.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
I'll hold judgment until I know more.
Hello
We have set you up with a provision.
The final step before you can download and install Podcaster is to give a donation. Please go to http://www.nextdayoff.com and enter your email. You will be prompted to donate. After we receive you donation, we will send you the download link.
You can find FAQs, Wiki and Issues at http://code.google.com/p/nativepodcaster so please go there.
Thanks again
Alex
MPORTANT NOTE: We are giving it away when we receive a donation of $9.99 or more. The program should work for a minimum of one year but since Apple can turn it off remotely, the 1 year installation is not guaranteed. We will do everything in our power to keep the program working. All donations are final and cannot be refunded.
(My post is about as factual as yours, troll.)
A new philosophy and new management is needed at the App store. This is really ridiculous - although in keeping with the idea that the iPhone is an appliance dependent on a computer - and it makes me respect Apple less.
I'm ready to defend Apple's good ideas when they have them - and that company has more good ideas - well implemented - than most others in the valley combined. But there are also a lot of idiotic boneheads at Apple who would like to keep their own self-interest primed ahead of what's good for the company and its customers.
In other words, Apple's ranks have swelled over recent years with marketing and product management dweebs who are more than a little starstruck with themselves and the company than is healthy.
Would it be so bad to clean house a bit and go back to the heady days of 1998-2002 or so, when "Not Invented Here" wasn't a dirty phrase, but an ideal to aspire to?
"I would not be surprised to see Apple turn this app off considering that it's being distributed outside of Apple's own marketplace. I also have heard that there may be a cap on the number of copies of an app that can be distributed with this workaround."
The developer is using the "ad hoc" method of software distribution for iPhone/iPod Touch applications, which is well known to have a limit of 100 authorized devices for a particular application. For this reason, Apple is unlikely to turn this app off, since they know the distribution is very limited.
No, of course not.
The obvious reason would be because those apps were competing with music downloads from the iTunes Store.
A less obvious, yet still valid reason would be because they are duplicating the functionality that iTunes has in loading and synchronizing music on the device, along with storing their music data in a location separate and different from the standard music library on an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Even if they downloaded the music for FREE, there is still a strong reason why Apple would not approve of their release in the Apps Store. They don't want apps to create duplicate stores of similar data to what is already loaded and synchronized via iTunes.
In the same way, I'd expect applications that duplicated the GENERAL iTunes synchronization functionality of the address book and calendar to be denied if they're going to be storing their data in a private location (which they would have to). On the other hand, if they were not so much general address book and calendar apps, but were instead something like specialized building contractor scheduling and contact organization apps, with unique functionality that only pertains to building contractors, I could see them being approved.
I think what Apple should do now to clarify this matter is to add an additional section to the SDK agreement, if it doesn't already exist, stating something like this:
"3.3.x An application may not have as its sole purpose the duplication of substantial functionality of the data storage and synchronization capabilities provided by iTunes. This includes, but is not limited to, audio data, Videos, Address Book contacts, iCal calendars, Mail accounts, and Safari bookmarks."
Also, I REALLY want to see podcasts added to the mobile iTunes Store.
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by sanjayb
September 17, 2008 5:32 PM PDT
- I have been wanting this functionality from Apple for a long time. And now they ban this app? That really sucks! Why is Apple afraid of doing wireless synching? Hey the Zune can do it.
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