Can I get around having to use iTunes for my iPad?

A podcast feed is a list of available episodes. If we use "the cloud" as an overarching term for any remotely stored accessible content then yes, they are in the cloud, but despite the cloudy logo they are not stored in Apple's bit of it, rather they are on the podcast provider's storage, both the feed and the content. What has changed is the way iTunes displays it to us. iTunes 11.1 has failed to maintain the list of "discarded" episodes from a feed and now shows us everything, even if we don't want it. I've no doubt that someone somewhere has been charged with putting things right, but iTunes is a big application so presumably there is a heirarchy of people involved with making any change and rolling it out. If someone spots a bug in one of my scripts, or has a feasible feature request, I can usually get it done in a day or two, but that isn't realistic here. Note this may not be a programming error per se, rather a failure to fully consider the implications of a design specification. The code probably does what it was supposed to do.

tt2

I mostly agree but there are at least two errors -- failure to maintain a list of what I have discarded of past episodes and the new iTunes also does not keep track of what has been discarded of current episodes and so keeps dowloading them no matter how they are deleted locally. Important flags are not being set. If one has about 60 podcasts, as I and many others do, this is a lot of traffic on my data cap and/or space on my hard drive. And the only way to fix cloud content is to subscribe to iMatch.

Because there is such a hierarchy in a big company they should have someone or a team on hand to handle roll outs with significant changes - whether features or bugs - and a roll back strategy if it has a large failure.. Lacking that sort of support they should do beta testing in limited areas ahead of time. This is such a widespread problem - it isn't something that most people using podcasts wouldn't notice. I just watched Maria Bartiromo - why am I seeing this twice - I already deleted it. One notices. What happens when a phone or tablet gets full because one cannot delete??? It can't be pretty.

And if the intent is to move us to iMatch then they should let us know that. They aren't the first company to suddenly charge for what has been free. Just let us know ahead of time.

I just checked with Suddenlink and my daily usage of the internet tripled since the rollout and before I turned iTunes off. In this region it is more than a cash penalty if one goes over the data cap - one's name goes on a list of users to be punished harshly if the offense if repeated. Grrrr...

A crude workaround for deleting current episodes would be to physically delete the files in Windows Explorer/Finder without removing the entries from the iTunes database. iTunes will retain a broken link to the missing file, but not try to download it again. Turning off all automatic downloads is probably a good move too.

You may have problems getting rid of content. The update threw away some 1700 episodes that I wanted to keep! 😮 (OK, invertate hoader!). Many were from feeds that are no longer there or only put up the content for a limited time. Thankfully I keep three complete copies of my data, but I wasted a fair bit of time restoring it. 😠

Removing iTunes native ability to backup to CD/DVD was probably, in part, an effort to nudge people to the iTunes Match service. I don't think the current changes are similar. The new podcast system should, in principle, let you listen to any episode on a feed without permanently downloading it to your computer or device if you don't want to. The choice is supposed to be yours. This isn't a money spinner for Apple, but a move towards being able to consume content from any device when it happens to be convenient, and allow you to pause playback on one device, and resume on another. It assumes we're all on all-you-can-eat data plans. It may not yet be true for us all, but it is the way things are going.

tt2

Manually deleting them outside of iTunes doesn't work. The minute itunes is open and connected to the internet and one gives the command to refresh they all come bouncing back. I currently use iTunes once in 24 hrs to download new episodes by pausing all at the opening of the download and then updating each new one in turn allowing only one podcast at a time. When the new ones are done I shut down iTunes and use media player to view.

I plan to migrate my podcats to something else that does not depend on iTunes in any way. It will be a lot of trouble but staying with itunes is also a lot of trouble. If this is a bug Apple doesn't seem to be in any hurry to fix it or give us a workaround. If this is a feature then they have lost my trust. I'll find somebody else who wants my business.

The files I suddenly lost yesterday are restoring -- for several days via Carbonite. 😟 Apple may not get rich off of me but Suddenlink sure will this month.

If you've paused downloads at some point then there is probably a list of the pending downloads sitting in <Media Folder>\Downloads which get reactivated next time you attempt to get anything. Clearing out that folder may put you back in control, assuming you also set each podcast for manual download.

tt2

Yeah, I tried that too. Nothing turnsoff the Sorcerer's Aprrentice - it just keeps downloading everything.

So I've installed gPodder and it lacks some feature but at least it isn't iTunes. And I've kept it completely separate from anything iTunes.

The nightmare about transferring podcasts is always getting the urls for them again. I could export from itunes but that keeps the links to itunes. However, I found out that one can select with shift-click the whole list of podcasts, right click and choose "copy url" and then open notepad and copy the urls there. Save the file and you have a list of urls that can be used anytime, anywhere. Wohoo!

In the process I discovered that NPR now has a podcast directory that includes all of its partner stations. I discovered 3 local(rural) podcasts I did not know about. So sometimes change is good.

Gpodder plus media player does the job with no nightmares so far. In the meantime I'm armed with a list of urls I can use anywhere. Once Carbonite finishes restoring the old podcasts in itunes that were lost I'll transfer the ones I want to keep over to media player.

Free, free at last.... well sort of... The Prisoner

I should mention that by leaving iTunes most of my album cover art has returned.

I should have mentioned that gpodder also uses cloud architecture but it knows how to handle it. At each step one can download or not and one can mark podcasts as old so they no longer show, etc. And so far, no intrusive downloads that I don't want. It is acceptable.

Now I have to budget my internet use until the 13th. Ugh.

Good to hear you've at least found something that works for you. I'm guessing you won't be an early adopter again for quite some time.

tt2

LOL. I wasn't an early adapter this time either. Apple has a way of changing the "notify me before updating" into "automatic updating" in sometimes invisible ways. It doesn't take much to switch that flag.

Not entirely happy with the new situation but at least I can control internet usage and still get my podcasts (egad - over 200 of them - I never counted them before). The usage of 20GB of usage in one day was the deal-breaker with itunes - usually it is about 4-8 GB (Data cap is 250GB)

I may try turning on iTunes again after the 13th and see if the download problem has been fixed.

gPodder is a good podcatcher but media player has some flaws with its display and playlist capability (or lack thereof). It doesn't handle second monitors very well, for one thing. Perhaps VLC would be better to combine with gpodder but that is to be determined at some future time.

Thanks for the tips.