DrunkenBlog has a very interesting discussion about Apple's Podcasting initiative and how it's all in an attempt to battling out "the content squeeze" faced from Satellite Radio. The theory is that Apple is using Podcasts as a tool to make the expense of filling up that enormous portable harddrive far less daunting. Considering that Podcasts are free, and can get enormous, the business concept behind Apple's decision to support Podcasts never actually occured to me until reading this.

DrunkenBlog notes the haphazard roll-out of Podcast support, which you must admit is uncharactistic of Apple who thinks of every aspect of it's customer experience with every product offering.

See, when you have gigantic 60gig hard drives, and you're discouraging illegal downloading, you need to suppliment your message with something other than the $10,000 of music needed to fill it. Napster and others are targeting this exact market with their subscription services, and Satellite Radio is doing the same with their "Ultimate Playlist" pitch. Apple needs to combat this, and what better way to do it than to fill your iPod with Senseo burps and top rated Social Bookmarks.

Genius.

[via Podcasting News]