In the Details: Sort Order
When the iPhone 2.0 software update was released, there was a change in the way the iPhone handled podcasts. The podcasts are organized such that all episodes of a particular podcast are listed together in what could be considered a playlist. Previous to 2.0, however, the iPhone would not continue from one episode to another. After the update, the next episode in the list would automatically begin playing. This caused an annoyance, however, as the list was in reverse-chronological order, meaning that the most recent episode was at the top. I had the choice of listening to my podcasts out of order, or manually selecting each one as before, but hearing the beginning of episodes I’d already listened to as it automatically started playing the “previous” episode.
I just noticed that in the most recent update, they changed the order of the podcast lists so that they are in chronological order and play from oldest to newest. Of course, if they allowed the user to specify sort order, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but that would add complexity to the UI—a tradeoff Apple chooses not to make. I respect that… when they get things right (or fix them).
