Face It: Apple Podcasts Is Still the Standard (Even Though Many Networks And Media Companies Ignore It)

Why does the industry’s biggest leverage point keep getting treated like an RSS afterthought?

Most podcast operators say the same thing when Apple Podcasts comes up:

“Yeah, we’re on Apple.”

That sentence is doing a lot of work.

Being on Apple Podcasts is not the same as using Apple Podcasts. And in 2026, that distinction matters more than ever.

While the industry debates YouTube-first strategies, Spotify’s relentless and inexplicable push toward longform video on a platform tailor built for doing literally anything else, video pivots, and the next social distribution hack, Apple Podcasts has quietly solidified its role as the most stable, compounding growth channel in the ecosystem. That “quietly” wasn’t some AI-fluff gobbledygook, either. It really seems as though Apple, the largest tech company in the world, is somehow STILL quietly dominating podcasting. How, I will never understand. But all the media attention goes to Spotify and Youtu…