No Syncing Between iMac and iPhone

The Podcast app is completely useless - at least on my phone.

The sync function is no longer accurate.

You get a playlist together in iTunes on the iMac and the sync is NEVER accurate.

The playlist on the phone is always a small subset (sometimes as little as 2 podcasts) of the playlist I compose on the iMac.

This has been the case for years and the problem never seems to get remedied with iOS updates.

Has Apple abandoned the Podcast app?

Also, it would be great if we could mix music with podcasts in one playlist.