PODCASTS in iPhone and iPad not in sync with iTunes

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PODCASTS in iPhone and iPad not in sync with iTunes

I have a 3rd Gen iPad and an iPhone 5. I have iTunes 11.1 on a PC. If it means anything I also have an iTunes Match account within the iCloud. It seems that my Podcasts sync between the iPhone and iPad, but not on my computer, even when I go old-school and connect either or both devices to the PC with a wire. Anyone know of a way to make iTunes stay in sync with the other 2? I'm a heavy consumer of Podcasts and would like to keep them all in sync at all times.

Incidentally with Apple calling everything "i" something, why not "iMatch" rather than "iTunes Match" but I digress.

A "suggestion" for Apple... In the Podcasts app, swap the positions of the player buttons and the other control buttons

In other words, the jump forward and jump back 15 seconds, play and pause, jump to next or previous podcast which are at the bottom of the screen should be where the playback speed, sleep timer, share buttons currently reside and vice versa. This way, when the phone is in lock screen mode, the position of the player buttons on the screen is relatively close to the same place. Thus your fingers and muscle memory alwyas go to the same spot on your phone for the same purpose rather than one spot in the app and another spot in lock screen mode to play/pause or jump forward or back 15 seconds etc.

iOS 7, Podcasts sync and button placement

Posted on Sep 27, 2013 4:22 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 27, 2013 6:05 AM in response to TheRosstaman

Being a heavy podcast listner I wanted this since the podcasts apps came out for ios.

In iTunes 11.1 in the prefrences there is an option to have podcast sync. After checking

that it asks you to sign in with your Apple ID. As of now it hasn't synced my podcasts on

two of my Macs. Maybe it will be out soon!

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Answer 2

Sep 28, 2013 9:43 PM in response to TheRosstaman

It seems that my Podcasts sync between the iPhone and iPad, but not on my computer, even when I go old-school and connect either or both devices to the PC with a wire. Anyone know of a way to make iTunes stay in sync with the other 2? I'm a heavy consumer of Podcasts and would like to keep them all in sync at all times.

Sorry, I can't really help except to say that I'm seeing the same thing: iTunes 11.1 doesn't seem to want to listen to what iOS devices are telling it with regards to podcast play status or presence (the Podcasts app seems much better at listening to iTunes 11.1).

If you really really want to keep them in sync: what seems to work best for me is get the Podcasts app off your iPhone, download all podcasts in iTunes, change Media Kind to Audiobook, and then sync by plugging in. This however leads to all kinds of other problems. See some of this stuff I've posted in this thread for more detail on the unfortunate kludges involved with this issue.

Alternatively, abandon iTunes 11.1 for podcasts, and get another set of speakers in your computer room - play podcasts through your iPhone on those speakers. Obviously, this option kind of ***** if you don't want to spend money on a redundant set of speakers (after all, my computer has perfectly reasonable speakers!).

Actually, that leads to what may be a dumb question: can I use my computer to play directly from my iPhone? Can I AirPlay to my computer? I don't see that option, but I have a vague impression that more recent iMacs can handle that.

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Answer 3

Sep 30, 2013 6:51 AM in response to Lost in Asia

There are apps that will let you airplay to your computer. I actually do airplay my podcast to a second set of speakers with an airport express in my home office. I find that to be the best solution. I have a feeling though that a fix may be comming and iTunes will sync with the podcast app over the air. Just hope its soon!

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Answer 4

Oct 12, 2013 3:08 PM in response to TheRosstaman

MY PODCASTS SYNC!!!!

I am so happy!

My iTunes version is 1.1 so make sure your itunes is updated.

Go to iTunes prefrences(command ,) and in the Store section make sure that Sync podcast subscritions and settings is checked!

Curious to know if it works for you now, so reply back!

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Answer 5

TheRosstaman Author

Level 1

14 points

Oct 13, 2013 10:28 AM in response to jkanjiravilyil

I already had that part working sort of. The thing that's not working is keeping iTunes in sync with my podcast listening. Today, it sort of worked, but not really. I just started listening to all of the Breaking Bad podcasts. Started at #1, and have listened through #4 and just started #5 so far. But iTunes indicates I have bits of 3 of the 4 completed podcasts left to listen to. I've listened to #s 1 - 4 entirely, and both my iPhone and iPad are in the same place, but iTunes indicates 6:27 left in #1, 3:25 left in #2, 12:20 left in #3, completed #4, and almost all of #5 to go. #5 is the only one that iTunes has correct the rest is incorrect.

When I was able to use the music player to listen to Podcasts this never happened. Very bad job of Apple to force us onto the Podcast app with it not really working well. I wonder if this is the first poorly done release since Jobs passed on and if there are a lot more to come. This really should have been done better. We the buyers of this product expect much better quality than this.

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Answer 6

Oct 13, 2013 7:17 PM in response to TheRosstaman

TheRosstaman, I'm seeing the same thing: podcasts that I've finished listening to on the iPhone aren't marked as played on iTunes. I've had a whole bunch of podcasts that I've finished on the iPhone, but have a few minutes left on iTunes. It's like the playback position is periodically synced, but then the fact that it's been entirely played sometimes isn't synced at all - so what iTunes remembers is the last time the playback position was synced.

I'm having marginally more luck with not syncing podcast subscriptions at all. (Podcast episodes only sync from the iPhone onto iTunes when the iPhone is plugged in.) Syncing playback position and plays is only sometimes working, but at least I'm not (currently) having random disappearances and reappearances. Both the iPhone and iTunes seem to be successfully remembering what they've been told or what's happened, which wasn't the case when I had podcast subscriptions synced - they're just not doing a good job of telling each other what's happened.

But yeah, podcast syncing between iTunes and an iOS device is currently buggy at best. If I had a spare speaker dock I'd just have that in my computer room now, and abandon syncing altogether. There's way too much micromanagement involved now. I don't want to spend my morning digging through podcast playlists to establish which ones I've already listened to!

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Answer 7

Naybob

Level 1

0 points

Jan 29, 2014 11:06 AM in response to TheRosstaman

Dear TheRosstaman,

I was have the same problem as you. I found your discussion thread in hopes of solving the syncing issue.

By the Way thank you for creating this discussion.

After reading through everyone's replies I realised that not only did I have to turn on podcast syncing in itunes as

jkanjiravilyilstated...

But I also needed to turn on Sync Subscription in the Podcast settings on my iPad.

I did a manual refresh on the ipad and itunes to quickly check the syncing. And it worked marvelously,

cheers

thanks again

naybob

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Answer 8

TheRosstaman Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 30, 2014 4:33 AM in response to Naybob

Hi naybob,

To be honest I had given up on this until I received your email yesterday. That got me going again and believe it or not I think I've figured it out, at least what I'm about to tell you seems to work for me, but keep in mind the test run only began yesterday. On my iPad and iPhone I already had the Sync Subscription turned on, and iTunes was already set for Syncing as well. While I was looking around in the Podcasts settings in the iDevices, I realized that both devices did not have the exact same settings. So, if you're trying to sync Podcasts on more than one iDevice and iTunes, (iPad, iPhone and I assume iPod, but I'm not using an iPod so can't be sure) on your iDevice, go to settings on the home screen, scroll down and select Podcasts, and make sure all of your settings are the exact same.

On mine I had: Refresh Podcasts "Every Hour" on my iPhone and "Manually" on my iPad, Auto Downloads "All" iPhone and "Most Recent" iPad, Episodes to Keep "All Episodes" iPhone and "Most Recent" iPad. I changed all of these to be identical across both iDevices and so far they are staying in sync with my listening, and iTunes is also now staying in sync. The one thing iTunes is NOT doing is, that little ball to the left of the podcasts is not necessarily correct. So in other words, on my iPhone I had completed listening to one podcast, let's call it "Pod A", and had begun the next, or "Pod B". Later, viewing the status in iTunes the little ball next to Pod A should have been gone and it should have showed that I had listened to half of Pod B. Instead it showed I had listened to half of Pod A, and that all of Pod B was un-played. However, when I clicked on Pod A in iTunes it started the pod at the beginning, which is correct since I had actually already listened to it completely, and it started Pod B where I had left off listening on my iPhone earlier while I walked my dogs. In other words, the visual in iTunes was not correct, but where iTunes began playing each pod was correct. When I also checked the sync on my iPad it was in sync at the correct places as well.

Hopefully I'm not jumping the gun in reporting this as a success. If it breaks again, I'll come back and report.

Not sure if you're using more than one iDevice, but if you are, and if you're not staying in sync, try this.

Thanks

TheRosstaman

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Answer 9

Feb 13, 2014 6:53 AM in response to TheRosstaman

Thank you thank you for your post. I didn't realize how simple it was to clean up my out-of-sync issues until you walked me through it. Working like a charm.

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