Feeder 4.5
Feeder 4.5 adds support for some additional tags used by Spotify, Podlove Simple Chapters, chapters in the podcast preview, and includes some other improvements to the item editor, publishing, iCloud sharing, and more.
Spotify Specifics
Podcasts on Spotify require nothing additional over what you provide for Apple Podcasts, but using Spotify’s RSS extension you can optionally specify whether a podcast is more relevant to certain countries, and limit the number of most recent episodes shown in Spotify.
In addition, if your feed uses the Media RSS extension, you can now restrict a podcast to only appearing in Spotify in certain countries. Find all these under Spotify heading in the Feed view.
Podlove Simple Chapters Extension
Most podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, get information about chapters from the media file itself. However, Spotify’s mobile app needs chapter information to be included as special tags in the RSS feed using the Podlove Simple Chapters extension. As the name suggests, this extension was originally created to allow the Podlove Web Player to show chapter information, but the same tags may be used by other web players and apps too.
This extension can be enabled or disabled at any time each feed’s Settings view. When enabled, Feeder will automatically extract chapter information when you add an enclosure file to be uploaded or fetch its attributes, and will include those chapters in the feed, so no duplication of effort is required.
Where a chapter has specific artwork (that does not match the overall episode’s), a corresponding image file can be uploaded when the feed is next published. This option can be disabled, in which case chapters may not show a corresponding image when the episode is played in the Spotify mobile app or any other apps or players that require it — Apple Podcasts will not be affected.
The names for chapter image files will be based on the chapter title, so if episodes regularly contain chapters with the same title and image (e.g. for a recurring segment, or to mention a regular sponsor), a single image file can be shared across multiple chapters and episodes, saving space on the server. Alternatively, Feeder can store the image in a folder named after the enclosure, so that it will always be unique.
These options can be chosen when enabling the extension, or at any time in the feed’s publishing settings.
Chapters in the Podcast Preview
Feeder’s podcast preview will now show a chapters button above the podcast title once you start playing the episode in Feeder’s preview, and chapter images will appear as the episode plays.
Click the chapters button to see a list of chapters, and click on a chapter to make the player jump to that time and show any chapter-specific artwork. As with the rest of the preview, the chapter list emulates Apple’s Podcasts app.
Pricing & Upgrades
Feeder 4.5 is a free update for all existing Feeder 4 users. Feeder 4 is $49.99 and is available from Reinvented Software and the Mac App Store. Feeder 3 users can upgrade for $24.99 unless you purchased Feeder 3 in its final year, in which case it is a free upgrade. Upgrades are only available from Reinvented Software, not the Mac App Store. See the Feeder support page for more information about upgrading from Feeder 3. To download a 15-day trial and see a full list of changes, see the Feeder downloads page.