Why’s it called “podcasting?” Because it’s a blend of “iPod” and “broadcast.” Despite being named after an Apple product, and despite Apple having a huge lead in podcasting, the company has nevertheless fallen behind rivals YouTube and Spotify. Huge lead squandered. It’s shades of Siri, sadly. ‘Tis good for Apple employees’ ears that Steve Jobs is dead. He’d demand better performance.
A players attract A players. B players attract C players… A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players. – Steve Jobs
Ashley Carman for Bloomberg News:
Apple Inc. popularized the concept of podcasts in 2005 when Steve Jobs announced the company would support the audio format in iTunes, its pioneering music and media platform.
Despite Apple’s long lead, Spotify Technology SA. and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube have now become the most popular places to listen to podcasts.
A study published last month, from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights, shows YouTube — a traditionally visual platform — as the most popular podcast listening platform in the US, with 31% of respondents saying they use it. It’s followed by Spotify at 21% and Apple at 12%.
MacDailyNews Take: Tim Cook’s Apple was late, yet again skating to where the puck was instead of where it would be, with podcast subscriptions (not until 2021) and a web app so that other platforms (Android, Windows) could access Apple Podcasts (two days ago 🙄).
You know, some people get upset when we point out that Tim Cook is a boring, reactive caretaker who’s not really the best person to be running Apple today or for at least the past several years.
Operations manager Cook should have been a 3-5 year stopgap after Steve Jobs’ untimely passing, running the iteration playbook, providing continuity for the company while it found a real CEO. Instead, he hung on — and keeps hanging on — well past his sell-by date.
Sigh.
You can be upset with us for having the temerity to call it like we see it, but the fact remains that Apple would be doing significantly better today with a visionary who’d have seen AI on the horizon, who’d have recognized the intrinsic importance of Siri and therefore invested in it instead of criminally neglecting it, and who wouldn’t have squandered the company’s gigantic leads in things like personal assistants and podcasting.
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I can tell you the main reason why I use Spotify for podcasts instead of Apple podcasts. Apple makes you download episodes you want to listen to, thus clogging up local storage on your device. Spotify lets you stream them. If Apple can give you the option to stream episodes, rather than download, that would be a much better workflow.
Will this Help?
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/browse
Lets See if it Does.
Apple Podcasts has defaulted to streaming for many years. It gives you the options to set downloading or streaming preferences on a per podcast basis, or on a global basis.
Steve Jobs was not only a visionary, he had full moral authority at Apple. So he could impose directions even if everyone else doubted. A visionary without moral authority, only legal authority, won’t get far. It remains to be seen who will replace T. Cook.
That’s the million-dollar question. Who is that visionary with moral authority that can lead Apple? Does one exist? If not, then who comes the closest?
Based on the title I thought the lead was lost just recently. I guess there were high hopes over more than a year and a half that Apple would regain the lead.
Apple is doomed 🙂
Big Apple fan since the 80s. First Mac 1988 – SE 2/20.
I didn’t mind Tim Cook getting picked after Jobs passed. Guessed Steve wanted him and he was good enough. But years later. For the above mentioned catastrophe with Podcasts and Siri and also AI. Let me throw in Mac Pro.
I don’t see any benefit that he has any more vision than a 1847 pair of glasses.
Steve wanted him with Jony Ivy in charge of products … Jony is gone, Tim has not found a suitable replacement.
You totally miss the point in this article and about Apples philosophy in its DNA
“A players attract A players. B players attract C players… A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players. – Steve Job”
So it goes (for Apple) the world is predominantly full of B and C players (and lower) ergo Apple held sharing or expanding many leads to keep its creations for Apple and quality Players to use rather then expand just to getting the dregs of B C and D players on board to create market share.
Apple is not chasing market share to get to B and C players it will always want to just attract A players who pay a premium for Apple. Apple do what they do best the masses might all go to where the masses are but that’s not Apples game it will do it with quality and invent new things with quality everything is in Apple ecosystem and sticky for the A players
They are not In that race for market share never have been never will be so they hold some great ideas just for the A players as sticky items on Apple products until others rip it off and capture the dregs using cheep versions of Apples ideas and the simple minded assume because they no longer hold market share they must have dropped the ball when in fact it’s an old thing to apple they have it it does its job they moved on to new sticky ideas. They will keep it relive t as it’s just a little something they don’t need to be Turing everything into to be the top of every metric
What they do just works it’s not cluttered or cumbersome and that’s Apple all in one place that’s why people love Apple
Maybe think with a bit more depth before dissing Apple market share against the B and C players like windoze and Spotify who what numbers of crusd on the dime users rather than the cream of the crop
Just sayin😂