My First Thoughts on iTunes 4.9, and What’s Apple’s Next Step.
Last night I played with iTunes new podcast feature. From a user perspective it’s just magic. By far the best way to browse, search and subscribe to podcasts. It’s a big step closer to the ease of use that we’ve been waiting for. In fact while sitting down for dinner I wondered at the next step. Subscription video content, and how a media player on the home network could take advantage of playlists like audio in iTunes played through an Airport Express. Is that the future of TV? Will Apple release an iVideo player for the home theatre? Maybe even a wireless one?
From a publisher, or network, point of view, iTunes is a small nightmare. Poor Mick, who does all the behind the scenes work at TPN, has his work cut out for him over the next few days. You see, to get all the beautiful artwork and the listing just right in the iTunes Store, you need to add a bunch of new RSS tags to the feeds. After the initial bump, it will hopefully work smoothly. We just have to be patient. Having said that, it might have been nice for Apple to make them less “proprietary”. It’s a bit cheeky having them labeled the way they are.
<itunes :category> <itunes :explicit> <itunes :subtitle> etc.
Another nice feature is the use of bookmarks that the AAC format affords the publisher. I always make sure I get show notes fairly accurate for all the podcasts, but bookmarking means that you can skip straight to a section, and that a lovely little graphic can appear with links. Would people find this feature handy? Do many listeners use iTunes and/or iPods? I have the resources to produce AAC bookmarkable files, but would love to know if people would use the feature. Let me know in the comments.
Kirk McElhearn, who I interviewed a few months back, has written a great article at iPodlounge. The Complete Guide to iTunes 4.9, with Podcasts. Check it out for a good update on using the new features.
Also, please subscribe to The Gadget Show in iTunes here. Click the link, and when iTunes appears click the subscribe button. After all, we can’t have all these big media types hogging the Top 20 limelight.
June 29th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
Hey Rich,
If you can do a bookmarked AAC file that would be awesome. I listen to a lot of shows at work on my Ipod and have to pause a lot to talk to people and answer phones and all that crap and sometimes I hit the fast forward button by mistake. Then I have to go back and try and remember where I was up to and go from there.
Gimmie bookmarks :)
June 30th, 2005 at 7:10 am
I would love a bookmarked file
June 30th, 2005 at 7:22 am
I prefer AAC files… don’t care, yet, if I have a choice I always go with teh ACC’s over mp3’s… oh and I tend to play podcast via mplayer so it works either way for me.
July 13th, 2005 at 7:51 am
Will you provide mp3 files as well as aac files?
Not all of us have iPods. My mp3 player does not handle aac files. :(
July 13th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Pete
Absolutaley. If it happens, we’re just working through lots of other things at the moment, I’ll have two feeds. AAC and MP3.
Rich