Podcast Continuously Out of Order in iPhone 2.1

Question

Podcast Continuously Out of Order in iPhone 2.1

Greetings,

I just updated my iPhone 3G firmware to 2.1 and it has altered the way podcasts play. When one podcast finished it now immediately starts the next.

This would ordinarily be an improvement, but all of my podcast episodes are listed from most recent (top) to oldest (bottom), and the iPhone insists on playing the next one in the list; which is backwards, since I always want to listen to podcasts from oldest to most recent.

Is there a way to either (a) stop the iPhone from immediately playing the next podcast, like the 2.0 software did, or (b) reverse the order in which podcast episodes are listed.

(b) would be the preferable solution, since I find it annoying to have to scroll down to the bottom of every podcast list to find the next episode to play.

PowerMac G5/iPhone 3G

Posted on Sep 12, 2008 3:39 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 13, 2008 11:05 PM in response to James Bucanek

I'm with you-the option needs to be there to have this feature make sense.

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Answer 2

Sep 14, 2008 2:45 AM in response to James Bucanek

It used to be playback would simply stop after one podcast ended. Now, podcasts seem to have lost their sovereignty from the rest of the songs in the iPod app. If only they played back chronologically!

I tried resorting my podcasts in iTunes to show oldest above newest, but that had no effect. Seems this is a bug in need of fixing.

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Answer 3

Kim Kwan

Level 1

5 points

Sep 14, 2008 5:27 AM in response to James Bucanek

Bug. Somebody screwed up.

What's worse is that podcasts now "respect" any repeat settings you have. Before 2.1 it used to be that you may have set repeat to "repeat one" (maybe you were listening to a very good song beforehand and forgot to turn off repeat), but podcasts would not loop back to the beginning when they reach the end. Now though, they do, which is very annoying.

I prefer the 2.0 way, i.e. don't start the next one automatically, and please just ignore the repeat settings.

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Answer 4

Sep 14, 2008 10:52 AM in response to James Bucanek

I would really like to have the option to stop the iPhone from immediately playing the next podcast, like the 2.0 software did as I like to listen to podcasts separately, and in the order I choose. For me the 2.0 way much better suited by listening style. Could we have the option?

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Answer 5

Sep 14, 2008 10:56 AM in response to Michael Brogan

The lack of suggestions would indicate that there's no way to solve this problem with the current software. I'll file a feature request. Hopefully, this new behavior will annoy an Apple engineer or two and we'll see it straightened out in short order. 😉

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Answer 6

JetEngr

Level 1

5 points

Sep 14, 2008 11:02 AM in response to James Bucanek

Wow ... I just discovered this "feature" today too. I would like it only if it would play the oldest to the most recent (not newest to oldest). This is one that should probably be submitted to www.apple.com/feedback

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Answer 7

Jason π

Level 1

5 points

Sep 14, 2008 1:10 PM in response to James Bucanek

This regression is incredibly annoying. I almost always want to listen to a single podcast episode and then have playback stop. Until Apple fix this bug, using On-The-Go to create a one item playlist is a workaround.

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Answer 8

Sep 14, 2008 9:47 PM in response to James Bucanek

Thanks James for submitting a fix request...it sounds like many of us will be quite thankful, just like me.

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Answer 9

Sep 15, 2008 7:00 AM in response to James Bucanek

Yeah, I'm with you. I liked just playing one podcast at a time. I almost always go to sleep listening to a podcast, and fall asleep during the play. If I listen to the top podcast, then when I wake up the next day all my podcasts from that stream have been 'listened to' and marked as read. If I sync, they get deleted.

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Answer 10

dcormier

Level 1

8 points

Sep 15, 2008 8:53 AM in response to James Bucanek

I also discovered this change today. I was a bit confused when I was listening to my second podcast of the morning then it ended and started playing the one I had listened to (since I, too, listen to them oldest to newest).

I much prefer the old way of doing this. Minimally, I think there should be an option to stop after playing current podcast (or song, for that matter). Another possible option would be to not auto-play podcasts that have already been listened to.

On the up side, it's nice that the player now remembers that I want the track location panel (or whatever you want to call it) to be displayed.

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Answer 11

Sep 15, 2008 2:39 PM in response to James Bucanek

I filed a UI bug, not a feature request. It's a change in behavior, they changed it specifically for podcasts, and it more than doubles what you have to do to get episodes of a podcast to play in the intended order.

I also argued that playing through episodes, instead of stopping when an episode ends, is a mistake; podcast episodes are usually discrete -- you usually decide to listen to them in single-episode chunks. But that may be a matter of opinion.

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Answer 12

Sep 15, 2008 3:51 PM in response to James Bucanek

I was so excited to see they took some interest in the podcast interface with the new listening status dots (full/half full) but when I actually started listening to my podcasts... I saw this continuous play behavior and was really irritated.

Am I only supposed to put my podcasts on one at a time if I don't want to relisten to every one I've already heard? This also will negatively effect how these shows are marked listened to or not in iTunes on my next sync.

Hooray for 99% of the 2.1 - but a MAJOR thumbsdown on this bug. Almost makes podcasts unusable on iPhone. 😟

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Answer 13

hfidek

Level 1

0 points

Sep 15, 2008 5:19 PM in response to James Bucanek

do i am the only one to find that the artwork are way too big and we can't read the podcast title

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Answer 14

dcormier

Level 1

8 points

Sep 16, 2008 8:48 AM in response to hfidek

No, you're not the only one. I find that now the titles are too obscured. Only 2 of my podcasts have their entire titles showing.

That's a different issue than the one this thread is addressing, though.

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Answer 15

Sep 16, 2008 7:58 PM in response to James Bucanek

I almost crashed my car because of this today! Podcasts should definitely be discrete and only play one episode and then stop. I tried playing a podcast today before finding out about this new "feature" and when it automatically started the next podcast, it annoyed me so much I picked picked up the iPhone to stop it and I nearly crashed the car (note to self: don't mess with the iPhone until safely stopped at the next stoplight). I sure hope they go back to the old way, or at least add a new setting to disable this. Definitely not an improvement...

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