| Home > Community thoughts > Podcasters: Curb your whining about the Shuffle and taking a podcast-centric view of the world |
| Podcasters: Curb your whining about the Shuffle and taking a podcast-centric view of the world | | Date Created: 15 Jan, 2005, 09:50 AM |
 Since the release of the iPod Shuffle, the Podcasting community seems to have lost its senses, complaining Apple doesn't understand them or "get it". This has been brewing for some time, and the release of the Shuffle has been the legendary last straw to break that poor camel's back.
Even the likes of Doc Searls has been quoted on Internetnews.com as wishing Apple would design iPods more suitable for podcasts (though the article doesn't specify if he means creating or listening to).
Corporate Communications specialist Shel Holtz has blogged: "While no company has produced a podcast-centric device (podcasting is too new for such a device to have undergone the product development cycle), Apple seems to be going in the opposite direction."
And he offers further Searls' quotes from Internetnews.com: "Navigating inside a long podcast -and many are very long -is difficult even with a regular iPod, as it is with all players. So, rather than fix the one feature that's lame about the iPod, they eliminated it completely."
And on the Yahoo Podcast discussion list, the Shuffle has come in for a beating too, some comparing its lack of features to similarly priced mp3 players from iRiver (See top left). Mind you, the latter in exchange for an FM receiver, tiny screen, and mic. in, only gives you 128MB compared to the Shuffle's 512MB, and it requires you to carry around a USB 1.1 (not 2.0) connection cord if you want to use it as a memory stick.
Guys and Girls, I have been involved with the Podcast "movement" since its inception, listening to audioblogs for years, and probably treating my iPod as a podcast piece of equipment since coming across Chris Lydon's Bloggercon interviews in 2003. I have a couple of tech oriented podcasts up too, and I think I have a finger on the pulse.
But can we stop taking so podcast-centric view of the world?
Apple designed the iPod Shuffle and probably had it in prototype form way before Adam Curry laid down his first podcast for all to hear, which might be hailed as the start of the current podcast movement.
The Shuffle is not about podcasting front and centre. Why are you so disappointed and whining all of a sudden? Why is the likes of Doc Searls weighing in so heavily on this and expressing how clueless Apple seems to be with respect to podcasting?
Where is the AACb equivalent of bookmarking mp3s or wma formats in Windows Media Player or its Windows-based equivalents like MusicMatch? Are you complaining over on Microsoft-based blogs, or those devoted to iRiver or Creative?
Why are you levelling this criticism at the feet of Apple, just because you decided to name it Podcasting?
Start a revolution and show how upset you are with Apple's lack of foresight and innovation (yeah, right) and how they just don't "get it", by making a move to rename it "WiMPcasting". That'll really get up Steve Jobs' nose.
Do you really think that Steve Jobs knows nothing of podcasting or its current "podsquad" and the intense growth the movement is experiencing? If it's in Time magazine, the New York Times, CNN/Money etc etc - mainstream media - he knows about it.
That he hasn't guided Apple to immediately update iPod-based hardware and software to take advantage of what's going on isn't because he doesn't "get it" or has a personal dislike for its A-list (although there is some history with Dave Winer and Apple, I have no idea if Jobs even knows Winer), it doesn't mean anything - at this stage.
Sales of iPods have gone through the roof, and the Shuffle now allows Apple to reach down to another community of music lovers and listeners, preparing them for the day they can afford a "real" iPod with a hard disk and screen.
This is an iPod with training wheels, so young folk in particularly can learn to use iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, even if it means getting Mum and Dad to organise a monthly iTunes allowance, buying an iTMS gift card for themselves or friends with cash, or ripping CDs they buy in stores or, dare I say it, "borrow". Or some other means.
How hard has it been for Apple to once more reach young folk, since so many homes persist in using Windows boxes and the dominant IM young people use is MSNMessenger? You think this crowd with its enormous buying power is interested in listening to old farts' podcasts? About technology, or life in a shed in Alaska, or niche interests, or haute culture or tap-dancing newscasters? No way. They want music. And this is whom the Shuffle is aimed at.
If Apple can find a way to keep the Shuffle price to US$99, and include a low power-use screen that is truly user-centric, they'll include it in the Shuffle MkII when they can, but not before. And not because you clamor for it to make podcasting easier. They'll do it when they can show the other mp3 makers how to do it properly. Like they did with the original 5GB iPod so many people didn't "get" on its release in October 2001.
Listen up: The iPodsphere is about much much more than podcasts. Yes, we're all excited about the movement, and the community that's sprung up, the grass-roots assistance being shared around the traps and on discussion lists, and a sense of being part of something revolutionary and democratising, but just wait.
Watch the splintering that will occur once people start making money out of this: either by selling software and hardware solutions specifically targetted at the Podcast world, just like you always wanted (well, at least since August, 2004); or by the podcasts being picked up by Satellite radio, such as I predict the Dawn and Drew show will - if they can sustain it over the days and weeks of professional podcasting. Professional broadcasting, and what will become professional podcasting is harder than it looks.
Pros like Adam Curry make it look and sound easy, and probably without a radio pro like him podcasting, its current form may have taken much longer to develop or be just dismissed, as some do, as junk. But it's got a long way to go yet before the likes of Apple turns its attention to it and designs iPodware specifically for it.
You'll know when that happens when "Podcast" appears as a default genre in a new version of iTunes, or an iPod software update is released which allows for AAC files to have multilple bookmarks, leading the smart programmers to apply similar coding to mp3s - I have no idea if it can be done.
For now, it's going to require the Podcast community to rely on itself to make using an mp3 player more responsive to their needs. But be careful when you do receive what you wish for - more attention to your Podcentric world from the big boys in Silicon Valley and Redmond, as well as those in the community with business nous to see a ROI.
Nothing will divide the podcast community faster that seeing some people make real money out of podcasting, the spectre of losing its amateur fun status, and creating multiple levels of haves and have-nots. Those who have the smarts to make doh from this I wish good luck and good fortune, and hopefully you'll pave the way ahead for other unrecognised talents to find their place in a professional podcast universe.
When such a universe develops sufficiently, such that Apple can see further growth for its iPod platform, you bet they'll leap in with legendary innovation. The models are there with iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD and Garageband, such that Apple caught the digital DIY wave early. The big Waimea Bay-style wave of podcasting is still developing and not ready for Apple to turn its board around and surf in to the shoreline yet.
When it does watch the Rios and iRivers of the world try to keep up. They'll need more than just a cute surfboard and knowing that water is wet. |
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