dgstorm
Editor in Chief
This week, Apple released a new app for podcasts – (prerecorded audio shows that users have a chance to download and listen to later). Apple joined the podcast team somewhere in 2005 promising an open and integrated service that would make it easier for users to manage and be up to date with everything audio.
One surprise in the new app constitutes the new “Redeem†button which was not present in the older version. The feature also pops up in the beta version of iOS 6 and once clicked jumps to a separate “Redeem†page that looks very similar to the App Store’s.
The Podcast app shares the iTunes pipeline so that the application can be updated without Apple having to intervene inside iOS codes. This might be a valid explanation for why the button is there in the first place.
Another theory states that given the fact that the button is present only in the latest version of the iOS and not in the older one, it probably makes sense to suspect that Apple might be interested in making a profit out of podcasts.
Up until now Apple was against podcast creators to name a price for their audio files, but as the industry seems to be growing and a lot of big names are started to get interested in the business (like TED Talks and NPR programming) the dogma might change.
By Radu
Source: Apple possibly prepping premium podcast model for iOS 6
