Apple unveiled most of the major features of its new mobile operating system, iOS 6 at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) this week, but apparently it may have more up its sleeve.
According to an All Things Digital report on Friday, June 15, citing "people familiar with Apple's plans," the Cupertino, California-based tech giant is working on standalone app for podcasts.
Podcasts are pre-recorded audio shows that users can subscribe to and download for offline listening. Apple joined the podcast trend several years ago, in mid-2005, pledging to take it "mainstream by building everything users need to discover, subscribe, manage and listen," into its then-version 4.9 of iTunes. The format never picked up back then, but now it is reportedly starting to pick up steam.
In a preview of iOS 6, the next version of software yet to be released, developers were rather surprised to find iTunes' "Podcasts" link missing. Up until now, Apple has been offering podcasts within its iTunes app, then having users listen to them in Music, a separate app.
According to AllThingsD, the link is missing for iOS 6 because Apple plans to offer podcasts as a standalone feature this fall, when its new iOS 6 software becomes widely available. With such a standalone app, users would be able to find, download and play podcasts on mobile devices, without the need to listen to them in a separate app. Meanwhile, those who use laptops or desktop machines to access iTunes will still find the podcasts in that version of iTunes.
Apple split the iTunes player app into two separate music and video apps last year. Similarly, when it launched iBooks back in 2010, in conjunction with its popular iPad tablet, it served up the book reader as a separate app. The iTunes U lecture series has its own app as well, but users can still access downloads via the main iTunes player on mobile devices.
The move to offer podcasts as a standalone app may indicate some efforts to simplify and de-clutter iTunes or, as AllThingsD calls it, "put iTunes on a diet." As more evidence for this hypothesis, the publication points to another report from Appadvice published on Tuesday, June 12, indicating that Apple is breaking up iTunes in iOS 6.
