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Comment: Why Apple should invest in a corporate training solution using Podcasts

Podcasts have officially been around since 2003, but in the past few years, the medium has gone mainstream. It seems like every hit TV show has a podcast to go along with it. Topics that used to be niche can now have a global following. Regardless if a show is done by a mainstream media company or a one-person operation, anyone can have a podcast. There has been a lot of talk about Apple investing in original podcast content. Still, I think there is another way Apple could invest in the podcast industry: Building out the tools to enable business customers to use Apple Podcasts as a corporate training tool.

Why Apple Podcasts as a corporate training tool?

Podcasting would be an ideal tool to deliver corporate training on all sorts of topics. Companies could publish podcasts on various topics (sales, marketing, HR, safety, etc.), and then employees could listen at their convenience. It would be great for new employees as they could be given access to the corporate podcast feeds. It would take a lot less time than sitting in meeting rooms staring at PowerPoint slides. A company could record the training once, and then use it for new employees, retraining, etc.

How do you secure corporate podcast content?

There are many options that Apple could build out for enterprise customers who want to deliver corporate training on Apple Podcasts.

MDM Profile

One option would be that the RSS feed would be delivered into Apple Podcasts from a mobile device management system profile like a solution like Jamf could deliver. Apple could build out APIs to allow companies to control the content release schedule, content included, and who can access it. If Apple didn’t want to be in the business of actually hosting the RSS feeds, they could allow MDM vendors to host audio, generate the podcast feeds, and control the schedule.

Add username/password support to Apple Podcasts

While apps like Overcast and Castro have had support for signing into a protected feed for some time, Apple has yet to add support for it in Apple Podcasts. If Apple built out a solution in Apple Podcasts Connect (Podcast Training) that would connect to Apple Business Manager to authenticate, companies would know that only authorized users would have access to their training content.

What would a Podcast Training feature in Apple Podcasts Connect offer?

In my thinking about this solution, it would be a turn-key experience. Apple should build a native macOS and iOS recording solution that would automatically upload files to the training system. A company representative could then log in to the web solution, create new shows, schedule a content drip schedule, etc. Another way to extend it would be to allow for simple quizzes at the end of a podcast series to test how well an employee understood the content. Employees could then listen on their Mac, iPhone, iPad, or even Apple Watch.

Wrap up on Apple Podcasts as a corporate training tool

I love consuming content from a podcast feed. As we’ve seen the growth of audio storytelling using Apple Podcasts, it’s clear that the mass market is comfortable to subscribe to and listen to content on the go. I think that if Apple invested in corporate training infrastructure, it could be a big hit with employees, but save corporates a considerable amount of time and resources with the delivery of training.

What do you think? Would you like your company to deliver training using Apple Podcasts?

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