Podcasts on Android

by William Jackson on 2015-07-20

John Gruber linked to Benjamin Mayoʼs 9to5Mac analysis concerning iOSʼs dominance of podcast listening. Mayo writes that most iOS podcast listeners are using Appleʼs first-party podcast app:

Clearly, having the app preinstalled on the system (as of iOS 8) drives a lot of usage.

This is a big deal. Android — at least on Googleʼs Nexus devices — has never shipped with a podcast app preinstalled. Google had their own podcast app, Listen, from 2009 to 2012. They discontinued it because there were plenty of other podcast apps available on the Google Play Store.

(Ironically, podcast subscriptions in the Google Listen app were migrated to Google Reader. Google shut down Reader less than a year later.)

With the lack of a podcast directory and no first-party app, it is clear that Google doesnʼt care about podcasts. But if they are serious about the future of advertising, they would do well to pay attention. Advertising in podcasts is probably the only kind of advertising that I actually pay attention to.