I received this instant message today from a podcaster who has a great show. I have removed certain portions of the note but this will tell you how Apple is destroying the faith of podcasters they are trying to support.
“Hello, you know this really does not bother me. But I can no longer search and find my podcast or vidcast in iTunes. They are still there but you can only get to them from the direct link on my websites. Apple has removed them from being searched upon. But, I do not care. And it looks like Apple is going to have podcast that you have to pay for to get. That is just wrong in my opinion. Just look at the latest post from XXXX Show. They are going to have to do ads or subscriptions. I don’t mind the ads. The GoDaddy ones have saved me a few cents here and there. 2006 is going to be very interesting for podcasting and vidcast. Can’t wait.”
So why can’t Apple get their act together this guy has a great show, my good friend John Chambers one minute tip continues to not be listed either. He has about given up hope and this was after direct intervention by someone at Apple who could not fix his listing. They have serious problems over their.
The 4Flix.Net video podcast was gone from iTunes’ podcast search until yesterday, then it suddenly showed back up. Thought it might be Apple squashing the competition, but I guess not. It’s a great way to sample the movie content available for your video iPod from http://www.4Flix.Net They have full-length movies for download (instead of just TV shows and music videos like iTunes), and the price is just $1.99 each. Plus they are DRM-Free, which allows them to be copied to other devices besides your iPod.
I’m trying to figure out just what the writer of the article & the subsequent posts are complaining about. I have no problem searching podcasts (iTunes 6.0). There is a search field for podcasts after you click on the initial category (Podcasts) beneath that column is a specific search field for that category. I had no problems finding The One Minute Tips or John Chambers. Click on the small arrow next to the One Minute Tips & It takes me to your Vidcasts. Seems like someone didn’t make the effort to check these claims. Am I missing something here? To address the others posts: If iTunes prices go up so do all the other services…how is that Apple’s fault. That’s just an idiotic statement proceeded & followed by a series of idiotic statements. I have no speed problems surfing the web no more or less than the Windows box that I use at work. To make along story short you don’t know what you are talking about & are misinformed. I believe the organization of podcasts needs to be better but it is easier than finding sights on the web. In fact it allows (Normal, average, non-geeks) people to find your sight on the web that may have never heard of you at all. It is like free advertising. If Apple decides to charge that decision may be partially out of Apples hands. Some of the entities that have podcasts may be the ones that push that concept. Nothings perfect to the guy who was considering the switch…not only are you misinformed, I think you had no intentions of switching. I could care less what platform you prefer but, it’s obvious you have done little research on the subject, I wonder where you are getting your info. I would be willing to bet that your “iTunes problems” may have a good chance of stemming from user error. To Geek Patrol: try a little investigation. John’s last tip?
Photoshop Wednesdays #20: The Text Tool (Part 4) 3:20 John W Chambers 12/28/05 The Text Tool – Text for Web, Text Wrap, Text Masking. Free
To Lumpy: I probably would have never found your site had you not posted it here…I did find John’s (One Minute Tip) easily on iTunes by typing Photoshop in the so called non existent search field. In fact John’s podcasts are listed at the top of the Photoshop category as one of the top podcasts for that search category. Imagine that.
You know funny thing is I was thinking of trying out a mac and possibly switching from a PC but after the problems I’ve had with iTunes and I have other problems with it because I do not get my podcast from itunes, Im more advanced than that, but after hearing how others are having problems and its not just the windows version of itunes software and hearing how slow a mac is at surfing the net among other things…Well to make a long story short, I do believe I will not be switching after all. Plus I think after the music giants gets its way and Steve Jobs bows down to them and raise the prices next year, itunes along with the pretty little ipod will begin to fall from grace and the only way the ipod will stay on top is that more people will revert back to the old ways and just fill those big old ipods hard drives with illegal downloads from P2P…So, Thank you Apple for making me see the light before I made the switch.