How do I hide old podcasts in iTunes 11.1 and What's Up with the New Podcast Pane?

Apple just released a fix to the delete podcasts issues, works for OS 10.6.8 opn IMAC

Apple just released a fix to the delete podcasts issues, works for OS 10.6.8 on IMAC

Apple just released a fix to the delete podcasts issues, works for OS 10.6.8 opn IMAC

Dear Roger,

Since you were once so kind as to teach me "factuals" (or rather accuse me of being incapable of acknowledging factuals) let me take the liberty of improving a bit on your "factual" of the blue dot.

The blue dot to the left marks an episode as unplayed both in those on offer for download i.e. those with a little cloud to the right and those already downloaded.

Once one has listened to a not-down-loaded episode at all the blue dot vanishes and can't be ordered via the menu opening with ctrl-click to re-appear. However blue dot or not all un-downloaded episodes with or without blue dot can be listened to as often as not. If one choses from the ctrl-click menu to show old episodes the blue dot may be there or it may be not. I haven't checked the logic by which it is or it isn't but assume it will not show on episodes formerly having been downloaded and then deleted. If one has listened to an un-down-loaded episode, deleted it and made it re-appear via the ctrl-click menu it will again have a blue dot as if it were a total "virgin".

Once an episode has been downloaded the blue dot still signals that the episode has not been listened to and it syncs with the iPodShuffle (only mobile device I have) by either vanishing if the episode has been fully listened to or showing only halfway blue if the episode has been played only partially.

Also by using the ctrl-click menu one is free to make it vanish or re-appear albeit only the full blue dot, not the half one. I assume that the blue dot can be used as a filtering device in intelligent playlists but haven't had a need for figuring out how it behaves there or is at all useful. Up to now activating and de-activating has created for me all the filters I need. Since I manage my downloads in the list-view only I find installing or un-installing the blue dot useful (I do it via intelligent playlists) when scrolling through and deciding which formerly downloaded episodes to delete.

Maybe the above, dear Roger, will convince you that not everybody who disagrees with you is as ignorant as you like her to be.

that'd be version 11.1.1 at least my 10.6.8 tells me there is nothing more recent than that.

Thank you for the clarification about the blue dot. We are all on a learning curve here and details emerge as we go along.

As to your last sentence, in our previous engagement I contested not the facts about the way iTunes worked but your (almost) assertion that by removing the deletion facility Apple were stealing the cost of your Mac from you.

Dear Roger,

You were lecturing me that downloaded did not include just downloaded but only bought and paid for and then downloaded - now English may not be my native tongue but I am pretty sure that I was right there.

and yes Apple stole the cost of my Mac from me for 10 days by making the main thing I have it for all but unusable and as of now no apology or acknowledgement issued. Sorry but that is not what I think how a trustworthy company should behave.

this is what we call in German Wild-West-Methoden

Anyway the experience had its benefits for me I have been cured from my Apple mania and will content myself with a Kindle Fire HD trying my luck with amazon until they get the megalomania bug. (yes I know the HDX is coming but the HD is enough for me since I am a reader and the HD lets me lend all books, newspapers, films, audios on offer in libraries in the German state I live in for free - an iPad would do the same of course but 300 € extra just because it is such a haptic delight? Not after how they have behaved these last two weeks and especially not since I have by now found out that I have to live with ragged looking earphones on the iPodShuffle because they can't be bothered to offer replacements for sale.

Podcasts in iTunes have still at least two features which dis-improve it from its once perfect state. The most vexatious is the search function in the list view (my podcast view is uncomfortable and thus unfamiliar to me) - how search works in the current stroke of genius of Apple programmers (sarcasm intended) is still to me what Churchill said of Russia "a riddle wrapped up in an enigma".

I'm just come up with a simpler definition for the blue dot in un-downloaded episodes: it signifies that this episode has never been double-clicked on (it starts playing after double-click). I have just checked. If you download an episode play it so that the blue dot disappears "naturally", delete it and reload it via ctrl-click Menu saying show old episodes (my translation, I use a German menu) it will again show with the blue dot as a total virgin.

And here as a peace offer is a link to the best of all podcasts I have in my Library https://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/in-our-time-with-melvyn-bragg/id73330895?mt= 2

Thank you for the link: Melvyn Bragg is a splendid broadcaster. And whatever we may have disagreed on in a spirited but friendly way, I'm sure we can agree that a) removing the delete facility was an undesirable thing to do, and b) it's a good thing it's been put back.

Not that it particularly affects me but I'm sure that if Apple removed the enforced sequential play of the next episode in sequence when the current one ends it would make a lot of people happier.

your last point is what I am currently trying to figure out - up to now I have used my old Sony Discman and a CD with a calming to my ear audio book reader if I couldn't go to sleep.

I'd like to replace that ageing gadget by the iPod Shuffle but I can't find out how I can teach either the iPod itself or a playlist to stop when it is through instead of starting all over again which means using that I'd have to wake up enough to push stop.

It seems like all Apple programmers have on their agenda is what the young and wannabe young and hip crowds are after.

As to undesirable - making me spend hours and hours of correcting Apple's stroke of "genius" (negligence?) was quite a bit more than undesirable and without a very explicit apology I won't forgive them - I have just ordered a Kindle Fire HD which is on special offer in Germany currently - maybe that gadget will let me replace my Discman also - using systems with different philosophies is not my ideal but submitting to an autocratic one

exclusively is finished for me.

Playing a CD directly on the laptop doesn't do the job, the operating noise is too loud.

(since Melvyn Bragg is to your taste, the BBCs Radio 4 Point of View quite often has great stuff too as has the London School of Economics and NPRs Terry Gross and and and)

A new version of iTunes is now available, 11.1.1.11, which seems to have fixed the problem.

Version 11.1.1 has fixed the biggest problem but iTunes Podcast is still very far from previous close to perfect performance.

OK guys, I've upgraded to iTunes 11.1.1, and NO, my podcasts are STILL disappearing right before my eyes.

I downloaded the 2007 iPhone Apple keynote video podcast (it's big, 1.21 GB worth). I played some of it, then closed iTunes, then re-opened iTunes - and boom, the podcast disappears. I thought it might be some type of corrupted legacy carried over from my previous iTunes collection, so I dumped the Apple Keynote station from iTunes, rebooted my iMac, and freshly downloaded the same keynote podcast. Same things happens, it disappears after I relaunch iTunes 11.1.1.

Could someone please run a test for me. If you haven't downloaded the 2007 iPhone Apple keynote video podcast, if you can afford the bandwidth, could you please download that podcast and tell me if it stays put or disappears. At least that will tell me if its something peculiar to me and my set-up, or something is funny with that podcast(s).

thanks, Fox!

Hi Fox

here is my test - I am a newbie to the keynote address podcast, thus first step I subscribed to it, then by ctr-click asked to be shown all podcasts available and lo and behold the first mystery is that the 2007 address indicates it has only 6,1 MB while being a video of 1:45:25 - that suggests an explanation to me

Now I download and receive 1,21 GB which are properly stored on my hard drive (having properly reduced its available space) under iTunes Media Podcasts. (search Spotlight for Apple Keynotes)

Now I close iTunes and re-open and it is still there, both in the list and in the Finder i.e. except for that totally misleading indication of it being only 6,1 MB it behaves completely normal.

The first explanations I'd check is: Do you live in an area where Apple has different DRM-arrangements than it does in Germany where I am. Check what the Folder in the Finder says by ctrl-click on the folder and go to last item of menu (just a wild guess by ignorant but keen on trial and error me)

Please let me know when you don't need my checking any longer so I can delete the file (Steve Job's voice grates on my ears)

Thanks, well that's very interesting, indeed I also saw the file size to be exactly the same 6.1 MB at some point.

I have no idea about the DRM rules in Austraia with regard to the Apple keynotes. Personally, I'd be most surprised if it has anyting to do with DRM at all. I would suggest Apple would love their keynotes to be spread as far and wide as possible, everwhere, all the time. Please feel free to delete the podcast at will, although I'd like to hear from at least a few others if they are also uccessful in downloading and retaining the podcast without problems. It would suggest something's funny with my system and set up, and perhaps a total clean install and rebuild of my iTunes might be needed.

Many thanks, Fox

well if you know how to do it - I wouldn't and since Apple's philosophy re podcasts has become more eccentric/"innovative" with each update you'd probably get loads of new problems.

first - if you have the patience and the nerve for it - I'd suggest a call to their helpline - my experience is that the first line of response knows no more than I do or even less - but if you keep at it and manage to catch them in a non-aggressive way at some nonsense they will utter the magic sentence that they'll connect you to their technical superior and then you begin to have real competence taking care of you.

With one mistake iTunes (due to no misbehaviour on my part) made I went as far as the technical superior of the technical superior and it was lovely - all in all those calls take about an hour on the phone but besides solving the problem they are also a lesson in further understanding the system.

But before everything I'd go to iTunes My Podcasts Apple Keynotes and there at top on the right you got one of these wheels saying Einstellungen = Preferences? - If you click on it it tells you whether you have subscribed and whether you want to keep files. Also on the bottom left of that little window it says Voreinstellungen=higher Preferences? - check those - mine says keep all meaning that I have to delete manually UNLESS I make an exception in the individual podcast.

Good Luck!