Podcasts Turn 20: How Apple Celebrates a Revolution It Never Anticipated

Apple Marks 20 Years of Podcasting, a Medium It Helped Popularize Unintentionally. This year, Apple celebrates over two decades of podcasting, a milestone highlighted on its American website. The company recognizes the integration of podcasts into iTunes as the starting point of this era. For this anniversary, Apple has curated a list of 20 English-speaking shows that illustrate the diversity and creativity of podcast content.

While Apple did not invent podcasting, which emerged in the early 2000s from a blend of technologies including the internet, MP3 files, XML, and RSS/Atom feeds, the concept gained traction thanks to the success of the iPod. Launched in 2001, the iPod soon became an ideal device for listening to podcasts. The term “podcast” itself, known as “baladodiffusion” in French-speaking Canada, combines “iPod” and “broadcasting.” It was coined by journalist Ben Hammersley in a 2004 article for The Guardian, where he pondered what to call this burgeoning form of “online radio”: “What to name it? Audioblogging? Podcasting? GuerillaMedia?“

Fortuitously for Apple, podcasts became closely linked with the iPod in public perception. In 2005, iTunes version 4.9 simplified the process of searching for, automatically downloading, and transferring podcast episodes to the iPod once subscribed.

Highlighting the potential for anyone to create their own shows, Apple often mentioned “podcasting” alongside “blogging” as activities supported by its devices, including the first Intel MacBook. Podcasting was essentially a derivative of blogging, utilizing the same distribution system. With GarageBand, budding podcasters could record and mix their episodes before publishing them to a server and out to listeners.

Podcasts have become more professional over time, and radio stations have embraced them to expand their audience beyond live broadcasts. With the discontinuation of the iPod, iPhones and other smartphones have become the primary devices for listening to podcasts. Apple launched a dedicated mobile app called Podcasts — initially plagued by bugs — which is now available across all its platforms, including the Apple Watch.

Other platforms like YouTube and Spotify have also become significant podcast distributors. The concept of exclusivity has emerged, with some podcasts only available on specific platforms. Spotify’s 2020 expenditure of $100 million to secure Joe Rogan for several years and attract new subscribers is a notable example of this trend. This represents a shift from the original ethos of podcasts being freely available without geographic or digital barriers.

• Check out Apple’s app for our own weekly podcast, Sortie de Veille, to catch up on important news. Club iGen subscribers can enjoy Kernel Panic, which features more thematic episodes.