Top > Entertainment > 2005 > July > 2005-07-24

What is happening with Apple and podcasts?

Even though most podcasts only take 48 hours to appear, many music podcasters are finding themselves left out in the cold. Despite the widespread proliferation of podcasts through Apple`s new iTunes version 4.9, it appears music podcasters that legally distribute independent music are being left behind and effectively locked out of the iTunes podcast directory, which is fast becoming the primary vehicle to find podcasts.

The Association of Music Podcasting (AMP) represents the largest podcasting content group in the world, with forty three members. As of this release, three weeks after the delivery of the latest version of iTunes, thirty four AMP podcast feeds remained unlisted in the iTunes directory. These podcasts were subsequently either listed in the iPodder.org directory that served as the initial basis for the iTunes client ,or were submitted within twenty-four hours of the iTunes release.

It appears Apple has placed procedural obstacles for many older, established podcasts to quickly enter its iTunes directory. Despite that brand new podcast submissions appear to be taking a reasonable amount of processing time (approximately 48 hours), many legacy podcasters have waited weeks without a presence on iTunes.