#HTE

When Design Changes Stink, and Here’s How to Get Apple’s Podcasts App to Autoplay Again

When the design of a product, service or system is willfully changed or something new is introduced, it is typically for one of several reasons:

1. Because it’s better for the consumer.

Example: The original iPod or iPhone. These objects provided a vastly improved user experience over what had come before.

2. Because it’s better for the company.

Example: The way that Whole Foods constantly changes their stores’ layouts, which I hate. I like knowing exactly where the thing I want to buy is. But by constantly changing the layout, the store forces you to wander in hopes that you will encounter something new, rather than shopping on autopilot, and buy it.

3. Because it’s better for both the consumer and the company.

Example: YouTube or Amazon recommendations, when they are working properly. If I am watching an informational or how-to video on YouTube, other videos on that same topic are listed to the side. Amazon is a bit more your-mileage-may-vary, but occasionally I find they will recommend books or items that are helpfully relevant to my prior purchases.

4. Because the designers are imposing their will on the consumer.

Example: Think of any number of recent architectural monstrosities that do not work well, but which express and inflict the designer’s ego upon the end users. On a smaller scale, see my recent gripes on the iPhone X.

Obviously there are more reasons than this, but I’m boiling it down to generalities. What’s more irksome, though, is when the reason for the change is neither of the obvious four above but is completely incomprehensible, as it is with the following example.

Apple is a frequent target for me, because I’m entrenched in their ecosystem and spend more time using their products than any other brand. I’m typing this to you using a MacBook Pro and the Thunderbolt Display that I spend most of my days staring at. Each night I fall asleep reading a book on my iPad Mini. And from morning to night, the only object I own that is always with me is my iPhone.

My current gripe is with the recent changes to the Podcasts app, which I use constantly. Podcasts are a wonderful invention that have improved the quality of my life; I can now use the time occupied by boring, tedious tasks–cooking, cleaning, hanging laundry, sanding, my weekly sharpening of tools in the shop, even showering–to learn something new and hear people’s stories in the background.

Previously the app had a simple, welcome feature: When you reached the end of an episode, the next one began to play. I never realized how important this feature was until Apple inexplicably removed it from the app last month. Since then I’ve discovered that podcast episodes have a way of coming to an end whenever I’m in the middle of a task, and my hands are too wet, dirty or otherwise occupied to pick the phone up and futz with it.

This last happened yesterday when it was raining, and I was out walking my dogs. I have two dogs and cannot carry an umbrella while walking them so I bundle up in rainproof gear. An episode ended and the phone went silent. We were still 20 minutes from home so I unzipped, fished out the phone; my hands were wet so the Touch ID wasn’t working; I punched in my six-digit code and tried to dry my hands off enough to get my taps to register so I could cue up the next episode, my phone getting wet in the process.

And I’m thinking, there is no good reason for them to make this change. When I got home I searched for some button in the app that would turn auto-play back on, but there was none. A web search showed me others found the change similarly problematic. 

“I am also completely frustrated with the new podcast app,” wrote a commenter on Apple’s discussion board. “I spoke with Apple this morning and they said in order to fix the problem, several hundred people must complain on the apple.com/feedback website under the app Podcast. So everyone go write a complaint to fix the problem.”

I did so, and I hope that you will too if the change bugs you.

Another commenter provided this helpful temporary fix and explanatory screenshot:

“The only workaround I have managed to find for this removed feature is to create a ‘station’ for the individual podcast in question. I had a couple of stations already setup when I updated to iOS 11 where I’d add podcasts of a similar theme, e.g. "Soccer” or “technology” and realised that the station settings allow you to choose the playing orders (see screenshot). You can then choose to play oldest to newest and they continue onto the next episode. This is a workaround and not a real fix but hope it helps.“

I tried this with one of my podcasts. Despite configuring the settings as demonstrated, for some reason the station remained "empty” (no episodes), which I couldn’t figure out. Then, five to ten minutes later, the episodes inexplicably populated the station correctly and it worked.

Now I just have to do this with each of the dozens of podcasts I listen to, which is needlessly time-consuming. I can’t imagine what benefit Apple imagines is conferred to the end-user by removing the auto-play feature entirely, rather than at least making it an option one could toggle on or off. It speaks of a puzzling cluelessness, which I would not have imagined from a company that, previously, proved so good at predicting how to make things easy to use.