Podcasts App... Not Syncing Correctly.

Seriously Apple?! I thought podcasts was your bag, yet implementation of them in iTunes and iOS is abysmally bad. And it seems to be getting worse.

I am signed into my iCloud account on both iTunes and iOS. What I would like to happen (and should be happening) is the podcast played flags and playback positions sync between devices seamlessly. Not only is this not happening, but podcasts I've already listened to and deleted from my iOS device are reappearing and being flagged as unplayed after I sync.

It's infuriating to say the least.

p.s. I'm also getting the occasional duplicate podcast in iTunes after syncing.

The most embarrassing thing of all for Apple? My iTunes podcasts sync perfectly with my 7 year old iPod but not with my relatively new iPhone.

Steve Jobs would have fired the lot of you.

Same thing here - they still work perfectly with my years-old Nano, but won't sync correctly at all with my expensive new iPhone. Sad. I'd rather not have the wireless sync at all if it has to be this broken.

Just bought the new iPhone 5s and am trying to sort out the syncing of podcasts. I have iTunes set to load my iPhone with the 5 least recent unplayed episodes of each of my podcasts, but when I try and sync wirelessly, no info seems to get transferred to iTunes and I don't get any new episodes to listen to on my phone. Not a happy camper! Fix this pronto Apple! I only started using the podcast app when I was forced to after the upgrade to iOS 7 on my previous iPhone. I've loved your products for years, but the quality is seriously going down.

I have the exact same problem. I was actually shocked for a while early on when I got my iPhone 5s and listened to a podcast and then when I opened iTunes, my spot was synced...but that last about 1 day.

Apple is the new MS?

After putting up with this glitchy iPhone podcast app, I have officially deleted it. My seven-year old iPod still syncs perfectly with iTunes and I'll continue to use it. It's been more than a year and Apple still can't or won't fix the problem. Obviously it's not a high enough priority for them or else the issue would have been resolved in a matter of days. I don't understand why my newer iPhone can't do what my old iPod can. Doesn't matter anymore. Thanks for nothing, Apple.

I remember back around 2005 or so when I had one of the early ipods and was getting into podcasts. I had a small, b/w screen and it didn't do much more than play audio but I certainly knew exactly what was going to be on my ipod everytime I picked it up after syncing. And if I wanted to add something manually, I just dragged it over. Simple but it worked. And that was the beauty of Apple, it just worked.

Now I have absolutely no faith in the ability of anything to work at all. My podcasts sometimes will, sometimes won't download. I have to go into each while around a wifi source to make sure the newest episode actually has downloaded and if not, I have to try to convince it to do so. And if I do get the episode downloaded, there's no guarantee that it will actually play when I want because I could very well get a message that it's not available.

And previously played episodes get downloaded again and again while what used to be a clean and simple interface with 4-5 episodes per podcast listing is now bloated with eps that are not actually there but in the cloud as if I care.

The apple cloud efforts have been a miserable failure and podcasts are only one of the services that have been almost destroyed by it.

Boy this is a very long post. Looking at the support page for Podcasts its rediculus the number of posts there.

Like many here I find that podcasts sync well to my older model Touch but then I was listening to the podcasts through the music program and not the Podcast program.

Appears that the Podcast program wouldn't sync my Podcast playlists properly. Either they didn't show up or they were missing podcasts. Took the longest time for them to institute sort by oldest date first. Seriously, does no one on the programming team listen to podcasts?

I have the issue of podcasts not syncing properly back to itunes so I had podcasts reappearing.

I have some radio programs that I record off of the internet but I can't get the Podcast program to see them even when I change them to a "Podcast" kind. It's like iTunes and the Podcast program aren't written for each other.

Seems with every update with iTunes there is something that stops working for podcasts.

I have a 27" iMac and an iPhone 5c

Ipad 2, none of my podcasts are updating. I deleted and resubbed, still doesnt work. Fix it Apple, fix it.

I'm in a similar situation. After sticking with Podcasts for a long time, I'm admiting a this stage it's never going to be a good application. Just now I had a bunch of stuff downloaded, and it won't let me play them because it claims they're not available from the site - I had already downloaded the podcast episodes and played one of them a few days back. I tell it to update a podcast, and it downloads a new episode. I switch browse a different podcast before coming back to the original one to find the new episode has vanished.

I struggled with the original versions, with the animated tapedeck, that were slow and showed similar reliability issues. I deleted it and came back when they ditched the junk and seemed to have improved a lot of things. I'm done now - not even going to bother trying future versions.

I'm trying Downcast, and if that's anywhere near as terrible as Podcasts I'm going back to syncing podcasts to the music player. Considering podcasting really came to prominence through the iPod, it's sad the application provided by Apple is so sub-par. Podcasts are one of the main things I listen to when I'm travelling. If I can't reliably listen to podcasts then why am I using an iPhone?

I have been using Downcast for about a year. It works great. I do not sync with anything. I only have it on my phone. It checks for updates wirelessly every day, downloads new episodes and deletes the episodes I have already listed to. You can set it up that way or delete manually. I am very happy with it. I have tried using the Podcast app off and on, but I always go back to Downcast.

The Real Sean, you won't be disappointed. I don't post here anymore, but still get update e-mails. I'm amazed at all the people that still come here to complain day in & day out. There is a viable & completely reliable solution that is an amazing app. It has tons of features that far surpass the Podcasts app even if it actually worked. If the Podcasts app started syncing perfectly tomorrow I wouldn't even try it. It still lacks dozens of features that Downcasts has. But, people will keep coming in here crying about how Apple won't do this & Apple won't do that. IT IS YOUR OWN FAULT! There is a solution, stop complaining about it, fix the problem & move on with your lives. I used to be one of those people & I'm so glad I finally saw the light. There is no solution for the Podcast app syncing issues & Apple does not & will not care if you post in here about how upset you are. Download Downcast. I sync seamlessly between an iPhone 5, a 2010 27" iMac, an iPad 2, a 2013 Macbook Pro, a 2012 20" iMac, & an iPad Mini. I ABSOLUTELY NEVER HAVE A SINGLE PROBLEM, with playlists, settings, downloads, or partially listened to podcasts. I listen at work on my iMac, walk to my car & pick up where I left off for my commute, & walk in the house and pick up where I left off by Airplaying my Macbook to my TV. As Apple used to say, "It just works." Support an amazing developer & download Downcast. Trust me!

BTW, I have no affiliation with the makers of Downcast in any way, but I use their product everyday & it is simply amazing. Peace!

Just a quick note about Downcast: there isn't a Windows version, so you won't be able to create your own manual Podcasts from downloaded content e.g. from iPlayer if you run Windows.

p.s. I'm not actuslly sure if you can create manual podcasts with the Mac version of Downcast. I'm only mentioning this as manual podcasts were discussed earlier on in this thread.

I have found the best way to be able to listen to your podcasts is to do the following:

Create a smart playlist that contains podcasts that haven't played yet

Sort it by release date

Create a regular playlist

Select all podcasts, right click and select Get Info

Change them from podcast to music

Copy them to the regulary playlist

Set your phone/touch/etc to sync the playlist (under music tab)

Sync your phone, ipod, etc

All of your podcasts will apear under music in the playlist and in sorted order

itunes will download the podcasts again but its not too hard to know which ones have already been copied to the playlist as the duplicates will still have the same release date. So you can easily select them and change them to played. After you've listed to the podcast you can delete them from your music in iTunes.