Apple Podcasts (known as simply Podcasts in Apple operating systems) is an audio

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

service and media player application developed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

for playing

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s. Apple began supporting podcasts with

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

4.9 released in June 2005 and launched its first standalone mobile app in 2012. The app was later pre-installed with iOS beginning October 2014. The Apple Podcasts directory features more than two million shows. Apple Podcasts is available on

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

iPadOS iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple for its iPad line of tablet computers. It was given a name distinct from iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones to reflect the diverging features of the two product lines, suc ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

watchOS watchOS is the operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It is based on iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone, and has many similar features. It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the o ...

tvOS tvOS (formerly Apple TV Software) is an operating system developed by Apple for the Apple TV, a digital media player. In the first-generation Apple TV, Apple TV Software was based on Mac OS X. The software for the second-generation and later ...

CarPlay CarPlay and CarPlay Ultra is an Apple standard that enables a car radio or automotive head unit to be a display and controller for an iOS device. It is available on iPhone 5 and later models running iOS 7.1 or later. More than 800 car and mot ...

visionOS visionOS is a mixed reality operating system derived primarily from iPadOS and its core frameworks (including UIKit, SwiftUI, ARKit and RealityKit), and MR-specific frameworks for foveated rendering and real-time interaction. It was develope ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating systems,

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

s, and on

Amazon Alexa Amazon Alexa is a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances. Alexa was largely developed from a Polish speech s ...

devices. In 2024 does not support

opus Opus (: opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera ...

History

Apple was an early promoter of podcasts (the term is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of Apple's

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

music player and "

broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

"), and added playback functionality to

4.9 released in June 2005 and built a directory of shows in its iTunes Music Store, starting with 3,000 entries. In April 2020, Apple Podcasts surpassed one million shows. In June 2021, Apple launched the option for podcast creators to implement paid subscriptions through podcast channels.

Market share

Apple Podcasts had an estimated 28 million U.S. monthly listeners and 23.8% market share in March 2021, the first month it fell behind

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

Podcasts as the top podcasting platform in the U.S. This was a decrease from Apple's 34% market share in 2018.

Application platforms

iOS, tvOS, watchOS and visionOS versions

A standalone Apple Podcasts app was announced at the 2012

Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

as a feature of

iOS 6 iOS 6 is the sixth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc, being the successor to iOS 5. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 11, 2012, and was released on September 19, 2012 ...

. Apple released the app early on the

App Store An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not i ...

on June 26, 2012. It adds a new "stations" feature for discovering new podcasts. It is a standard app on

. A standalone Apple Podcasts app was brought to 2nd and 3rd generation

Apple TV Apple TV is a digital media player and a microconsole developed and marketed by Apple. It is a small piece of networking hardware that sends received media data such as video and audio to a TV or external display. Its media services include ...

s on September 24, 2012, with the Software 6.0 update. The

-based 4th generation Apple TV launched in October 2015 without the ability to play podcasts. This was despite a Podcasts icon appearing on the home screen in commercials, in-store demo loops, and developer documentation. Apple Podcasts was added with tvOS 9.1.1 released on January 26, 2016. Apple Podcasts was added to the

Apple Watch The Apple Watch is a brand of smartwatch products developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple. It incorporates activity tracker, fitness tracking, Health (Apple), health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates wit ...

with watchOS 5 on September 17, 2018. On the WWDC 2023 (June 5, 2023) the

Apple Vision Pro The Apple Vision Pro is a mixed reality, mixed-reality headset developed by Apple Inc., Apple. It was announced on June 5, 2023, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and was released first in the US, then in global territories thr ...

was announced and with that visionOS 1 with Apple Podcast. On March 5, 2024, Apple added transcripts to the Podcasts app on iPhone and iPad with iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4. Transcripts are available for English-, French-, Spanish-, and German-language podcasts

macOS and Windows versions

Apple Podcasts for

and

was initially available as part of the iTunes app, which added support for podcasts in version 4.9 in June 2005. Apple announced at

WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

2019 that iTunes for macOS would be split and replaced by the

Music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

, TV and Podcasts apps with the release of

macOS Catalina macOS Catalina (version 10.15) is the sixteenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. It is the successor to macOS Mojave and was announced at WWDC 2019 on June 3, 2019 and ...

. Apple Podcasts remains available through iTunes on Microsoft Windows.

Web version and other platforms

On August 19, 2024, 19 years after the initial launch of Apple's podcast directory on iTunes, Apple finally released a web interface for Apple Podcasts, expanding access to users without iTunes installed on their computers, and computers running operating systems other than Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows. Unlike

Apple Music Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...

, there is currently no Apple Podcasts app available for Android.

Smart speakers

Apple's

HomePod The HomePod is a series of smart speakers developed by Apple Inc., Apple. Designed to work with the Apple Music subscription service, the HomePod incorporates beamforming and eight speakers and is sold in two colors: white and midnight. It is s ...

family supports Podcasts using a

voice user interface A voice-user interface (VUI) enables spoken human interaction with computers, using speech recognition to understand spoken commands and answer questions, and typically text to speech to play a reply. A voice command device is a device controlle ...

. Support for Apple Podcasts was added to the

Amazon Echo Amazon Echo, often shortened to Echo, is a brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon (company), Amazon. Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled Virtual assistant, intelligent personal assistant service. ''Amazon Alexa, Alexa'', which resp ...

line in December 2019.

Apple Podcasts Award

Reception

Critical reviews of the Apple Podcasts app have generally been mixed. In 2012,

Engadget Engadget ( ) is a technology news, reviews and analysis website offering daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics, video games, gaming hardware, apps, social media, streaming, AI, space, robotics, electric vehicles and other potentially ...

stated it "offers an opportunity to break through the clutter of iTunes". In 2017, ''Slate'' criticized it for glitches and low-quality audio. In 2019, ''Vulture'' called the app "a bummer" and "bare-bones and fairly clunky, even when it comes to basic functions like subscribing."

References

{{Apple Podcasting software IOS software WatchOS software MacOS software

Podcasts A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device or stream to listen to at a time of their ...

IOS-based software made by Apple Inc. TvOS software