Apple Just Made It Easier to Launch Your Podcast

Getting a new podcast in Apple Podcasts (or iTunes, for anyone old enough to remember) has never been the most straightforward of steps for early-stage creators.

But there’s good news. Apple has just flicked the switch on an integration with a number of popular hosting providers (including our own Alitu!), which adds a “Submit to Apple Podcasts” button to their interfaces.

Not only is Apple Podcasts one of the major platforms for podcast consumption, but getting your show listed there automatically makes it available in scores of other apps and directories. So this is almost like having a “submit everywhere and as quickly as possible” button, which is even more exciting!

How it Works

Until now, anyone submitting a show to Apple needed to create or own an Apple ID, and be logged in to Apple Podcasts Connect.

But under this new workflow, selected hosting providers will each have a sort of custodial Apple account, and they’ll submit all of their client shows under that one account.

The temporary drawback is that you won’t have access to analytics inside Apple Podcasts Connect if you submit your show this way. But that’s easily resolved by logging in and claiming your show whenever you feel ready.

To initiate a transfer, you’ll just need to search for your show in Apple Podcasts Connect, let Apple know you want to claim it, and a short verification process will follow.

Claiming your podcast will almost always be possible, though Apple has pointed out, “Shows that have been archived, added to a channel, or have an active subscription are not eligible to be claimed.”

An “active subscription” means you’re selling premium content on Apple Podcasts, which would put your show at a pretty advanced stage. So this isn’t a potential roadblock to worry about if you’re just starting out.

Why Is This Important?

Ten years ago, Apple had a seemingly unassailable lead over any other platform when it came to podcast consumption. Then, Spotify came along.

Whether it was Apple’s dominance or the company’s culture in general, they’ve always moved slowly. In the not-too-distant past, it was common for new show submissions to take 4-5 days to be approved.

They’ve been much quicker at vetting podcasts recently, and I wonder if part of that has to do with the Spotify submission process being almost instantaneous.

These days, you can read articles and reports about podcast consumption where Apple won’t even get a mention (and yet, you’ll probably see non-podcast platforms like TikTok enjoying much coverage, but that’s another story).

The reality is that Apple is pretty much neck and neck with Spotify right now when it comes to folks following podcasts. Okay, that isn’t a big achievement, given how far ahead they once were. But it shows how integral the platform is to the medium as a whole.

Spotify is very good at marketing to podcasters. You can host a show there for free, and they’ll give you no reason to suspect that you need to make it available anywhere else.

With this small change, Apple doesn’t just make it easier to get listed on their platform but on a plethora of others, too. This is welcome at a point where some new creators simply never get around to signing up to Apple Podcasts Connect, and their content unwittingly becomes a Spotify exclusive.

A small win for open podcasting, then? We’ll take it! And if this has just made things more accessible for you as a new creator, then all the better.