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It has become increasingly difficult to find RSS feeds for podcasts. More and more podcasts have moved to the various "platforms" like iTunes, Spotify, Google P
by krylon 4y ago
It has become increasingly difficult to find RSS feeds for podcasts. More and more podcasts have moved to the various "platforms" like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and finding a plain old RSS feed has become quite the heroic quest in some cases. :(
- scarface74 4y agoPodcasts never moved to iTunes. You submit the URL to your podcast feed to Apple and it scrapes your feed. Once someone subscribe to the feed, iTunes is no longer involved. The directory of podcasts that Apple indexes is available as a free API that anyone can use and has been an open API for over a decade. Every real podcast player allows you to subscribe directly to a podcast if you know the RSS URL. When you play a podcast, even through iTunes or the podcast player, the audio is served from your website. None of this is true for either Google or Spotify,
- krylon 4y agoThanks for clearing that up! I have noticed a trend, though, for Podcasts to no longer provide a "raw" RSS feed, and point you to "wherever you find your podcasts". It is usually possible to find an RSS URL, but it takes a bit of work sometimes.
- scarface74 4y agoMany third party podcast players for both iOS and Android use Apple’s directory as the canonical source of podcast RSS urls and for search. Once they retrieve the RSS feeds, then they poll the RSS feeds directly.
- krylon 4y agoI usually listen to Podcasts on my desktop/laptop, though. I use gPodder, which does not access Apple's directory. I could switch to another client, ... but I'm a creature of habit. I might try building my own Podcast client, though, I've been looking for a project lately.
- scarface74 4y agoIf you have an iPhone, Overcast has a web interface.