I understand why Apple felt the need to create this app. The current method of managing and listening to podcasts is split between iTunes and the Music app, and holds on to old models of syncing between the computer and the iPhone / iPod. It's a mess, and that, of course, is why there are third-party apps that have been doing a better job for podcast enthusiasts.
Unfortunately, this is bad news for the makers of the third-party apps. My personal favorite is Pocket Casts. They put a lot of work into creating a great user experience for podcast listeners, which seems to have been replicated in some ways in Apple's "official" podcast app. (I'm not saying Apple copied them, just that some of their UX conventions also exist in the Podcasts app.)
As I say, Apple did need to fix the current way podcasts are handled in iOS. Overall, it's probably going to be a good thing for podcasters, as it will make it easier for the average consumer to subscribe and consume podcasts.
It just makes me feel bad for the app developers who have gone through so much work to create excellent products, only to see their role shoved out of the way as Apple integrates this new feature into iOS. It's an old story; Apple's been doing this sort of thing on the Mac for ages (remember Coverflow?), but it still gets to me a bit. I'll keep using and loving Pocket Casts, I just hope they and others can compete now that Apple's got their own Podcasts app.
I think there is plenty of room for multiple podcast apps to do well, even with Apple's version present. Podcasts really do make up an important part of many people's day (not unlike an audiobook, or NPR, H. Stern, Rush, etc.), and the way people want to consume and manage podcasts varies substantially and that opens up possibilities for multiple apps.
I don't even see it as that far-fetched to imagine this addition helping 3rd party apps. Say Average Joe doesn't even know what a podcast is, but the Apple app is interesting enough that he tries it/them out and suddenly "podcast" is on his radar. He is now a new potential customer for a 3rd party app that has a feature he'd like but is missing from the Apple app.
Considering the history Apple has of "absorbing" the features of popular third party apps, at this point developers should almost expect it to happen sooner or later.
I remember a time when that was the biggest criticism of Microsoft, the way they would absorb more and more features into Windows, putting all the little guys out of work.
I think anyone who listens to a lot of podcasts is still going to want a more serious app. I've never heard of Pocket Casts, but it looks really nice. I use Downcast and I see no reason to switch and lose features. Apple's not going to build auto playlists or server fetching.
Pocket Casts is excellent. The killer feature is server side feed updates. I subscribe to around 20 feeds. Checking for new episodes takes less than a second using Pocket Casts, every other apps I have tried takes at least two minuets.
I wonder though, because you still need to download the app. I think the previous position in the Music app was much more prominent for someone who wasn't already a podcast listener. So now someone searches the store for "podcasts" and sees a free Apple app with 3 stars and a $1 third-party app with 5 stars, and that's pretty competitive.
Yep, podcasts will remain niche if there is no built in support with a home screen app. Just as smartphone apps were niche until apple added the app store on the home screen.
Now if a podcaster wants to tweet "check out my podcast" with a link, they have to preface it by saying "make sure you already have a podcast app installed". A lot of friction for users unfamiliar with the medium.
Of course, Apple, even in a built in app, would never add all the features serious podcast listeners would need, so Pocket casts would still healthy exist. In fact, with the increased exposure podcasts would have on the home screen, Pocket casts would have even more people searching for "pro podcast apps".
Now all Pocket Casts has is the chance to compete with a free Apple podcast app tucked away in the app store.
I have been using Stitcher too, and love it. Interestingly, after The Talk Show moved from 5by5 over to Mule Radio, I contacted all of the parties involved to try to get the new version of the show on Stitcher, so that all of my postcasts are managed in one app.
I got a reply from someone at Mule (whose name I didn't recognize) that said that they did not like Stitcher's business model. This strikes me as strange because I figured that the larger the audience, the better deal the podcast is giving its sponsors. But, no, apparently they don't want Stitcher to host their podcast and then serve iAds (which I ignore) in the app. But yet they have no problem with Apple hosting the podcast on their servers.
This really sucks because Stitcher does a lot of things that lend to a great user experience including (but not limited to) transcoding the podcasts so that they can be efficiently streamed.
Hopefully this new app from Apple will allow me to gather my podcasts under one umbrella.
Edit: Ugh...no, this new app is nowhere near as pleasant a user experience as Stitcher.
I figured they were taking advertising money to fund both their work on the the app itself (which is free) and for maintaining the server infrastructure that allows them to stream quickly (which can't be cheap to them).
Which would be an appropriate arrangement of it was their content. But it isn't. Would you be willing to pay for those two products without the podcasts themselves? Of course not, the app and the servers are valuable to a consumer because of the content. If the content creators don't get a cut of that advertising money then the business model isn't fair.
Not to mention that stitcher removes any editorial control over the kind of advertising associated with any given program.
Sure. At the same time it is all of the content on Apple's own iTunes servers that gives value to those servers, and Apple uses that value to sell more hardware. Are podcast creators getting a cut of that? If not, then why might they think that business model is fair?
Edit to reply to below: that has been the case for the download model. How certain are you that this is still the case for the streaming model of this app? Have you sniffed the traffic?
Unfortunately, this is bad news for the makers of the third-party apps. My personal favorite is Pocket Casts. They put a lot of work into creating a great user experience for podcast listeners, which seems to have been replicated in some ways in Apple's "official" podcast app. (I'm not saying Apple copied them, just that some of their UX conventions also exist in the Podcasts app.)
As I say, Apple did need to fix the current way podcasts are handled in iOS. Overall, it's probably going to be a good thing for podcasters, as it will make it easier for the average consumer to subscribe and consume podcasts.
It just makes me feel bad for the app developers who have gone through so much work to create excellent products, only to see their role shoved out of the way as Apple integrates this new feature into iOS. It's an old story; Apple's been doing this sort of thing on the Mac for ages (remember Coverflow?), but it still gets to me a bit. I'll keep using and loving Pocket Casts, I just hope they and others can compete now that Apple's got their own Podcasts app.