Steve Jobs told attendees at the Wall Street Journal’s “D: All Things Digital” conference Sunday night that the next version of Apple’s iTunes software will support podcasting. Currently, iPod owners must use third-party software to download podcasts. But Tim O’Reilly called Jobs “slightly dismissive of populist podcasting, describing it as ‘Wayne’s World for radio’, and celebrating the arrival of professional radio stations into the market, but nonetheless, he was very high on the podcasting phenomenon, and the excitement that millions of users have displayed about it.” Jobs told Jason Calacanis (has anyone peeled Jason off the ceiling yet?) during Q&A that he was open to the idea of selling podcasts from the iTunes store.
From a report on AppleInsider, Apple is also adding functionality that will show related album art during podcasts.
From the Online Journal (sub. req.):”‘I think this will send it into orbit,'” Mr. Jobs said, adding that he sees podcasts evolving into an advertising-supported medium similar to radio.”
– Jobs said downloading music from mobile carriers would be “‘a lousy buying experience'” likely to be two or three times as expensive as Apple’s 99-cent downloads, adding that ‘it’s hard to see their customers as that stupid.'”
More coverage from Scott Rosenberg: “(Walt) Mossberg asked why it wasn’t reasonable to assume that all portable-device functions — music, email, voice — would converge on the cellphone. Jobs’ cagy reply: ‘I thoroughly understand the question, and I’ll have to leave the answer to our actions in the future.'”
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post