I’m a huge fan of podcasts. Watching them is one of the main methods I use to learn. Whenever I’m trying to learn about a topic, I find the most knowledgeable and credible people (i.e., they’ve had outsize success) in that field and listen to them being interviewed on podcasts. Like many, I started off on Apple Podcasts, but over the last few years I’ve been consuming podcasts via YouTube. I don’t watch the videos, really; I just listen. But YouTube’s search and discovery algorithm makes it many times easier to find relevant podcasts. Combine that with the fact that most podcasts (even audio-only ones) can be found on YouTube, and it became hard to stick with Apple Podcasts.

Today, the battle for podcast dominance heated up a bit. Apple announced that its Podcasts app will start supporting video in addition to audio podcasts (see here). This likely isn’t enough to get me to switch back to Apple for podcasts, but it signals the importance of podcasts to Apple and how video is becoming a dominant part of the podcasting landscape.

I’m curious to see what other changes (if any) Apple makes to its Podcasts app. YouTube has shown how lucrative placing ads in videos can be, and I imagine Apple wants in on this revenue source—especially when you consider that they pretty much invented the podcast space.

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