iOS 7 Music app no longer able to play podcasts when Podcasts app is not installed.

Tested. If you change Media Kind to anything other than Podcast, the file will disappear from the list. Try it. Which then means you would have to manually located the file/files and drag/drop them into your playlists.

The solution, should Apple decide to re-enable this capability, is to allow a file of any Media Kind category to be added to a playlist.

For whatever reason, Apple has decided that it does not want customers to listen to podcasts via Music playlists, and only via the Podcast app (which is severely crippled by comparison).

I too would like to see podcast playback restored to the music app for interaction with my GPS navigation app.

Thank you very much for this tip, fratilai. I had no idea my Smart Playlists were still on my iPhone. There they are, several layers down in the Podcast app.

Since 2005 (when I produced a podcast myself), I have organized my podcast subscriptions into Smart Playlists--one for podcasts I haven't heard from the current week, another for podcasts I've already heard once that I got in the past two weeks (in case I wanted to re-hear).

This scheme worked great when podcasts played in the Music app. Then, back when I had iOS 6, I made the mistake of downloading an earlier version of the Podcast app. It was such a mess I got rid of it and went back to Music.

But now in iOS 7 there's no choice. As so many folks have noted here, we've had control of our listening taken away from us. I appreciate knowing that my Smart Playlists are still there (albeit buried deep in a separate app from Music), and I'm sure I'll get used to this new scheme. But this way of listening to podcasts seems kludgy as ****.

Apple, please give us back some control over this!

i'm really not trying to troll, as i love apple, but yikes... every new thing that apple does is way questionable since steve passed. how is it helpful at all to move podcasts out of the music app? similiarly, why segment the university stuff out to a different app as well? it really makes no sense.

i just bought a new iphone, and they put the headphone jack at the *bottom*... there's no way steve would have allowed that. no way. apple used to care tremendously about the details, but it's obvious that they're slipping. troubling times.

I thought I was doing something wrong! I echo what everyone is saying - taking Podcasts out of music is just wrong, Fortunaely the radio in my Yukon doesn't know that it can't access podcasts any more and I can use it to menu and play them

I'm furious - this is supposed to be a an official Apple support thread - where is the support, or even a response, from Apple? It's been over three months now.

I have an archive of almost one-thousand podcasts in my iTunes - ALL of them are music. I would like to be able to listen to some of them on my iPhone along with my other music, as I mostly listen to them while out running.

(Obviously I manage music manually as I hate Apple's attempt to sync/control everything)

Would it be cynical to suggest that Apple might find it convenient to make free podcasts as awkward as possible to push people into downloading more paid-for content?

Yes, it sounds like I could download the poorly received Podcast App - but that apparently does not allow old podcasts to be downloaded - only the ones curently available. And frankly why should I have to take the time, and potentially 3G data costs, to repeat this?

Apple how can you call this an UPgrade? All the pretty interfaces do not make up for lack of functionality and user control.

I agree entirely!

All I want to is play the Archers each day when on my drive to work. Until I "upgraded" it was easy. Select media select podcasts select play.

Now it's impossible. I have to open they glovebox and select manually and press play - whilst stationary of course!! When will Apple do things properly and consider their customers!

Just chiming in that I concur with just about all of you.

But the only way Apple will listen (if they ever do).

Is through this link

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

However remember this:

1: Apple is in this business to make money

2: podcasts are free

3: making it harder for you to listen to and keep podcasts is in their interests

4: as this will make you more inclined to buy the music featured in the podcasts

This is mainly valid for music podcasts but also more widely applicable of course

Basically the same is happening with iBooks, making it harder for you to use your own content legally bought elsewhere.

This is a general tendency in future updates. In future all media will become harder and harder to use including music.

And they will present it as a gift to the masses and the masses will swallow it like candy.

(Sorry for the little rant there at the end)

Agree whole-heartedly with you and all those who replied here. Apple replaces the most glitch-prone iOS(6!) ever with streamlined 7, then screws it up by removing Podcast functionality from Music! Why is it always compromise with this company??

It is important to realize that the term "podcast" originally meant BROADCAST. As in, something you downloaded and listened to daily, weekly, or whatever. Additionally, and iTunes provided the option under Get Info > genre or > File Type, to categorize any old AUDIO FILE as a Podcast, and have it show up in iTunes Podcast and accordingly on your i-devices.

Personally, I have HUNDREDS of files as Podcasts on my pre-iOS 7 devices and it works GREAT! Apple, please fix what didn't need "fixing", and restore the Music section to it's pre-iOS 7 design!

And that free separate Podcasts app? Works fine with Podcasts of the traditional kind I described above, but beyond one of my audio files as podcast-type, it cannot be made to see ANY of them.

I'm quite happy with my 4th gen iPod Touch and iPhone, and will stay with them and NEVER upgrade past iOS6 on them until Apple seess the error of their ways.

I've complained to the developer of my gps app about not being able to control podcast playback through their app, and worse, the fact that voice guidance pauses music but no longer pauses podcasts since their functionality was removed from Music and put into a separate (inferior) app, meaning I can hear neither one. Here's their response:

"Thank you for contacting the MotionX team. With iOS 7, podcasts are now played from within the podcast application. Unfortunately that means that the podcast volume can only be ducked and not paused when voice prompts are announced. I am afraid this is out of our hands, however if there is a future change with iOS 7.x we will be sure to implement this feature."

Is it so odd that people want to listen to podcasts while driving without having to fumble with their phone to leave the gps app, pause podcast in that app, then restart the podcast, finally returning to the gps? I usually miss the voice guidance by that time and one day I, or someone else, will die in a fiery wreck.

Apple, please address!!

It got even better with the iOS 7.1 update:

First, the lock screen slider that allows moving to a specific point in the podcast is not working. It is working in the music app though. This might be a pre-existing issue, but I just noticed it. Some of my podcasts are several hours long, so this would come in handy.

Second, and this issue has definitely been introduced by 7.1: I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal audio edition from Audible. I guess they are so paranoid about people pirating their content, that the format of the podcast is not MP3, but some kind of protected AAC. Prior to 7.1, this content would show under podcasts in iTunes, but I guess the Podcasts app cannot play it so when synching the phone it would appear in the Music app, under audiobooks. After 7.1, it does not appear anywhere! So I have no way to listen to my podcast.

All this because the arrogance of Apple. They could not persuade the customers to switch to their buggy and crippled Podcasts app, so they decided to force them. If this keeps going on, I'll probably switch to Android, I'm getting tired of putting up with it.

Also infuriated by this change. They've really gone out of their way to make Podcasts unworkable on the iPhone. After years of persevering, thinking "I must be using it wrong, Apple would not design it this poorly", I've recently deleted the Podcasts app. I got sick of it not syncing with iTunes, wanting to keep it's own record of downloaded/listened podcasts, sneaking in costly downloads, losing its place, stopping, skipping and generally being infuriating.

I attempted the solutions posted earlier in this thread - basically, deleting Podcasts on the iPhone, then setting up podcasts in iTunes on the Mac as usual, letting it download, then selecting them all and changing the Media Kind to Audiobook. I found trying to mark them as a Voice Memo to keep them separate doesn't work - Voice Memos aren't synced to the iPhone. Changing them to Audiobook and setting the genre to Podcast allowed me to create a Smart Playlist on that metadata with a play count of 0, and sync to the iPhone. All looked to be right with the world!

Unfortunately there are several gotchas: the first is that a confusing combination of sync options means all the podcasts will probably get synced twice, and in my case, the storage on the iPhone gets exhausted. I think there's a work around - select the iPhone in iTunes, go to Podcasts and uncheck "Sync Podcasts". Then in Books, selected "Sync Audiobooks" but change it to "Selected audiobooks" and only select the Smart Playlist you created. Not sure if this is going to work reliably, but it seems to have addressed the immediate problem.

The major problem however, and it's a showstopper, is that as soon as you set all your podcasts to Audiobooks, iTunes gets to work re-downloading them all. So not only do you have a constant download leak, you end up with multiple copies of every Podcast, rendering the "play count = 0" trick meaningless! I haven't found a way around this yet. It's so frustrating - I just want to listen to Podcasts like I used to be able to.

FWIW, there's a parallel thread on the same topic, with the same findings, here: music app - podcasts iOS 7

I hadn't noticed this on my iPod, because it is still on iOS 6 (and I don't play podcasts on my iPad).

But now I'm &!!$$ed off because I just bought an iPhone 6 expecting the Music app to provide the same functionality. I might have considered Android if I'd known.

Apple MUST be aware of how much they've annoyed their customers by this.

As I've remarked in the parallel threads (music app - podcasts iOS 7and Podcasts App... Not Syncing Correctly.) the workaround established in this thread has just been undermined again by Apple. As of iOS 8.4, Audiobooks are no longer playable in Music, and one must use iBooks instead. I still haven't worked through the pain of figuring out whether the new house of cards still manages to play, resume, download, sync and mark as played correctly, but so far I've not been given much hope.