If you’re a podcaster or podcast listener, you’re going to notice that everything is a little different this week on your Apple device. Podcasts in iOS 11 has been given new looks and functionality with both improvements and what are some steps back for the amateur podcaster.

The New Apple Podcasts Look

There is no doubt about it, Apple Podcasts looks way different in iOS 11. Everything is bigger, bolder, and more like the Apple Music app. Let’s walk through some of the screens.





The first screen you will see is the Listen Now screen. This is where you will find the latest episodes for the podcasts you subscribe to and your recently played episodes. Nothing that much different here, just a cosmetic facelift and the feeling of bigger and bolder.

The next tab over is the Library screen. A little repetitive in my opinion to the Listen Now screen, but if you have a ton of subscriptions and you love to go into the back catalog of your favorite podcasts it offers great organization. Going deeper into the Library screen, you can head to specific shows you subscribe to and then down to the episode level which will display in chronological order.

Podcast Discovery Gets A New Setup

Where things really begin to change is in the Browse tab. This tab is important to both podcast listeners and creators alike. It’s where new shows are discovered! Unfortunately, if you’re an amateur podcaster this new setup may make being discovered a little bit harder on you with the heavier attention paid to featured providers.

The first thing you’ll see on the Apple Podcasts browse tab is a slide show of new popular shows. If you’re a new listener these will be showed to you at the first look. Under that slide show you’ll see the Featured category. This is where you’ll see a similar look to what you may remember your desktop iTunes podcast setup looking like. You will see the familiar New & Noteworthy, Featured Categories, Featured Collections and more. Displayed will be the most popular shows based on the subscribers formula (amount of new subscribers in a certain period of time) and also hand picked shows by Apple Podcasts team.

You will also notice the Featured Providers category. This is where all the big name media outlets will get prominently featured. If you’re an “amateur” you will never be in here and that’s a shame. I should note that not even Gimlet or Podcast One made it in! I’m not sure how Apple will decide who gets to be featured here, but I hope the thought is pure and it will evolve.

One thing I really do love is the new look and setup of the episodes screen when looking at particular podcast. Now included is a Best of the Podcast and a look at Ratings & Reviews. There is now an easy option for listeners to give a podcast a rating and also swipe through people’s reviews.

Listening To Podcasts

With the iOS 11 update you will notice the addition of Podcast Trailers and the ability for podcasts to set Seasons. Thanks to the popularity of shows like Serial, there became a need for better categorization or episodes. This will not show up right away for everyone. The content creator will have to update their RSS feed to include Apple’s New Podcast Tags to be able setup in that new format.

While listening to an episode, you can now also swipe up to see options like a sleep timer, description, chapters, notes, and what’s up next.