Anil DashApple is adding video support to its podcasting apps — that’s great. But the way it’s doing so might jeopardize the openness that’s kept podcasting from getting enshittified like every other form of media. It’s not too late for them to fix this. https://anildash.com/2026/02/28/apple-video-podcast-power/
Matt Godden@anildash Do you know that Apple's iOS Podcasts app communicates to Apple what shows you listen to, even if you don't download them from Apple's directory, or subscribe to them in Apple's app. Even if you have iCloud sync for Podcasts switched off.
If you manually copy a podcast file into the app, it sends the file info to Apple, and downloads an Apple provided episode artwork (overriding the file's own art) based *purely* on the name in the ID3 tags.