Get old episodes of a podcast
I've seen you've rejected this idea before, but it's a must for me. Let me explain.
You say that you show all the episodes provided by the RSS. And it's true. This is the most popular spanish podcast:
http://www.cadenaser.com/rssaudio/milenium.html
It only shows 11 items (and that's what PA shows). But if you go to iVoox and look for the same podcast, it says that there are 885 audios, and you can browse (and listen) all of them.
The WordPress RSS, for example, allow to add a parameter to the RSS URL (?paged=2) to browse older items.
Is there any way you can add this feature? Apart from that, I totally love PA :-)
Sorry but Podcast apps can only show the content provided by the RSS feeds you subscribed to.
This content is managed by the podcasters.
If they use RSS standards to give access to archives, then you will get all the older episodes as Podcast Addict supports feed pagination.
However keeping a cache of older content not in the RSS feed is NOT legal without a signed authorization from the authors, which is of course not possibles with millions of podcasts available.
Any app that is currently doing this is violating the terms of services and doing this without the approval of the podcasters…
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Andrew commented
I am having problems with the podcast app on my iPhone. It’s just that whenever I want to listen to a podcast, like, The Adam Carolla Show. I tried to go look for his podcast episodes in 2018 but, it didn’t show it, the thing said all episodes so I was like, ok I can find all of his podcast episodes but it went to the end at his podcast episodes in 2020. It’s not fair all podcast episodes from the oldest to the newest should show up on any podcast apps including Spotify because that has podcasts.
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@Borek Bernard
The problem is that Feedly might give access to old content that some podcast owner removed from their RSS feeds because they want the user to go to the podcast website to retrieve this old content.
If podcast owner want to give access to archives they can do this by using RSS feed paging mechanism. Podcats Addict support it and will retrieve all the available archives in that case.The problem isn't a technical issue but a legal one.
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Borek Bernard commented
How about using Feedly or a similar service to get to the old episodes? If the authors don't object to Feedly, then I guess it's all right to use that "public information", right?
My experience is that podcast authors often truncate their feeds unknowingly - for example, some CMS generates it for them and they are not really aware that only a couple of past X episodes are available. Feedly would work around a technical issue, not a legal / moral one.
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Hi,
Sorry but this app 'Ivoox' seems to be only available in Spanish so no I don't know this service.
Yes there are podcast owner who are choosing to make older episodes available only through their website so they can earn some money by selling them.
I can assure you that they don't like it if you provide content not available in their RSS feed. I have been contacted quite a few times because of this, and they asked me to remove those content.
Once again, podcasts are available through the podcast owner RSS feed.
You can open the podcast RSS feed on any web browser and you will see that the app only show the content of the RSS feed.
To do so, long press on the podcast (not the episode), select Copy to clipboard and paste the result in a web browser, then you can scroll down to see what the older episode is.
Please share the podcast RSS feed so I can take a look at it.
Once again any server can store past episodes and make them available once they aren't available in the RSS feed anymore, but this might be illegal as explained earlier and more importantly, this will make those episodes not available anymore on the #1 podcast platform which is iTunes.
iTunes only shows the episodes which are still in the RSS feed... Feel free to take a look at this podcast page on iTunes to see what the oldest episode available is.So if the podcast owner really wants to give access to every episodes he should make sure not to truncate his RSS feed.
Feel free to send my email to the podcast owner if he want to talk about it, but this is a really simple issue.Podcasts relie on RSS feed. Anyone can open a RSS feed a check its content.
The app just provide the same content as the web browser does. If you don't have those older episodes, you won't find them either in the web browser page.Maybe this podcast has different RSS feeds, some of them containing every episodes, other containing only the last XX episodes, in that case please give me some information so I can check if a more complete RSS feed exist
Xavier
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andario commented
Hi Xavier
You don´t really know what Ivoox is? Because according to a quick search it is one of the most downloaded podcast players on Google Play, actually number 3, if I´m not mistaken.
What you´re telling me about the "legality" of it, I find it flabbergasting. I do not understand how a podcast creator would NOT want his older podcasts being downloaded, since the more downloads he or she has, the more revenue they might potentially get, regardless of being a single guy from his basement, or a big radio station. I actually contacted the creator of a well known podcast here in Spain before I contacted you, already suspecting I could not listen to all of his podcasts, and he "freaked out" a bit when I told him I was unable to download his older episodes, thinking it was some problem on his side. It turned out the only problem was your app, and he recommended using Ivoox, as I told you, which not only plays them all perfecly fine, but which should be a perfect example of how your app is NOT working as the content creator decided, but the exact opposite. Ivoox has also been the solution to many other older podcasts I could not listen to through your app, actually giving me a 100% reliabilty in that regard.
And while you tell me "90%" can be listened to using your app, I can equally guarantee you than in my particular feed that percentage is around 40%, at best, which should give you an idea of how GIGANTIC this problem is. It´s actually a quite peculiar feeling when you get to discover that the podcast you love actually has like 150 older episodes that you haven´t listened to... ;)
Ultimately Xavier, the technology of a competing podcast, or how that "feed" works, it is something I presume you should know as a developer, not me. I´m only a paid user with no technological knowledge in search of a product that "just works", allowing me to listen to all of the available content it actually exists. And I´m also an user who has been missing a shitload of content without even realizing it, thinking I was using the "best" app.
If you want me to send you some examples of podcasts where I can only listen to a tiny fraction of the available content, I can do for that for you, but your categorical "I'm sorry but I won't reconsider this" makes me think you´re not properly estimating how this is massively crippling your otherwise perfectly fine app. If that´s not end up being the case, you can contact me on the email I used to post these messages.
Cheers.
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I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do about this.
The app displays the content of the RSS feed provided by the podcast owner.
If the podcast owner doesn't want old content to be in the RSS feed then it's his choice. He's the only one who can decide what's available or not.
The app supports RSS feed paging, so if the podcast owner wants to keep the RSS feed light for performance reason, he can create archive pages for the feed and link them together. The app will then find those archive pages and display their content as well, but once again, this is the podcast owner choice.I don't know what IVoox is, but any service that handles the RSS feed parsing server side can store older episodes. They just add new content without removing older content when it's no more available in the RSS feed, but this isn't legal...
If the podcast owner wants you to go through his website for older content (to display ads, or for you to buy them) it's is choice and everyone should respect that.So, I'm sorry but I won't reconsider this. The app will keep displaying unlimited content provided by the RSS feed, while respecting the podcast owner choice to limit access to past content or not.
BTW I can assure you that more than 90% of the podcast feed in the app database gives access to every episode without restriction. Most podcast giving access to a limited number of episodes are done by professional podcast owner who are making older content available on paid platform or by radio station.
Feel free to send me your podcast RSS feed url, so I can check what kind there are.
Thanks
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andario commented
Hi Xavier,
I understand what you´re saying, but this is a VERY serious limitation for most users.
What the previous poster has described actually happens to me on the vast majority of my podcasts, so those podcasts being "truncated" is something far from uncommon. Using the aforementioned example, you could easily understand that it doesn´t make sense to lose 90% of the content (or even more) across multiple podcasts, if we want to use your app. There´s simply no amount of features to compensate for that. And the fact is some other programs, like iVoox, allow us to get that content, so I don´t really understand how hard can it be for you to modify the program to b eable to read what other apps do read.
I´m 100% sure you may be losing potential users without even realizing it, just because of this gigantic issue. I´ve been a paid user for a long time, but this feels like buying a cool car that doesn´t allow you to go through the vast majority of roads. Senseless.
Please reconsider.
Thanks.
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As I already explained, the app is getting its information from the RSS feed. If the RSS feed is truncated by its owner then you wont be able to get older episodes. There's no server behind the app that parses the feeds and stores their episodes. Everything is handled at the app level