Apple have fixed the non-sensical menus that I wrote about on this blog a couple weeks back.

As these screenshots now show, audio podcasts get correctly marked as Played and video podcasts as Watched.

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Oh, the world somehow feels a little more okay again. Thanks Apple.

Dave

It seems a couple versions ago someone decided at Apple that we never actually listen to audio podcasts anymore. No folks, that’s just not allowed. How uncouth. Don’t you know that since youtube we all watch videos. And podcasts are only ever video. I mean, come on, get with it.

So now when you’re in iTunes and go to mark a podcast feed to indicate you’ve listened to them all you’re greeted with the menu selection “Mark as Watched“.

Excuse me? Since when do you watch an audio podcast? Why doesn’t it say “Mark all as Listened”?

What happened to Apple finesse?

For years Apple prided itself on the little finishing touches that made us feel that things were just okay with the world. Often unseen things were simply just right, like dates changing format with column widths and context etc. But now it seems things just get changed on a whim.

Come on Cupertino. Don’t just settle for flashy wow innovation on new devices. Wow us with the finesse and continuity of thought and attention to detail we are used to.

IMAC 24″/SD
2.93GHZ INTEL CORE 2 DUO
4GB 1066MHZ DDR3 SDRAM-2X2GB
NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 130 512MB
640GB SERIAL ATA DRIVE
APPLE MIGHTY MOUSE
WL KYBD & USER’S GUIDE-X
COUNTRY KIT,IMAC 24-AUS

NOTE This article has a date and was current at that date. I realise that Live365 has now changed and that the instructions in this post no longer work. I wrote this mostly for a friend who used Live365 a lot. I never have. I have no intention of updating this so it works, if indeed it’s possible at all now, and I have no inclination to find out. I’m sorry but I’m not Live365 support.

UPDATE 2: I snipped some off the end of a url I got and surprisingly it’s been running for two days now in iTunes when I try it. 

Here’s a short url I made:

http://tinyurl.com/rancho-radio

Here is the full url if you’re interested:

http://216.235.91.34:80/play?s=errbearmusic&d=live365&r=0&membername=&session=errbearmusic:0&AuthType=NORMAL&app_id=live365%3AVLCmediaplay&SaneID=121.45.1.160-1236557816884

UPDATE: In response to my post, Kent did some more digging – posted here. Seems the url you get is a temporary one. We’re doing more tests so stay tuned and will post more updates as we discover more.

So, my mate and cohost, Kent Newsome, is a music addict, song writer and streams his 28,000 song music collection out over his Rancho Radio station hosted on Live 365.

My other cohost and mate, Mike Seyfang, who, like me, uses a Apple AirPort Express to play audio in iTunes out over our stereo system, were looking for a way to play Kent’s stream over iTunes.

That means we needed a stream address, yet we couldn’t find one anywhere in Live365. We were all talking about it on the last podcast or two.

So I had some time to poke around this morning, as you do on a Public holiday when quietly vegging at home. And I found a solution!

I started searching and this pointed to the fact that it was possible to get a .pls file when clicking on the yellow play button in Live365 (even though that particxular post refers to Linux). Further looking found a couple forum post mentions here were near the mark.

I signed up to Live365 (Free) so could get to the “Listening Settings” page from under “My Account” on Live365 site.

However the default page only mentioned a “Radio365-Desktop” application under “Desktop Player Options”.

Being aware of getting to the base url of streams using VLC before, I figured maybe I could sticky-beak around the back of this app of theirs, so I dutifully downloaded, installed, and poked around.

Nifty, spiffy looking app, but no cigar for my purpose – {delete app}.

So I had another poke around at the “Listen Settings” page and lo and behold, look what they hid under a link next to a label called “Additional Options” – two options, one that reads “iTunes”. Check that radio button!

So now, go back to the Live365 website and click on the yellow play button again.

This time, even though the little java player window still pops up, a prompt should also pop up asking you what to do with the “.pls” file. I chose open with iTunes, because that was the whole point of this excercise. But you can choose whatever player app you have and use on your system, no skin off my nose.

And viola! The stream should open in your iTunes. Look in your Library, not the Radio link in the top section as that’s an Apple controlled list. You can make your own playlist and drop your streams in there. Like mine here.

So, there ya go Kent, I’ve done my bit to make the Internet a better place … just for you (point #8).

Happy listening.

Dave