My Verizon Icon has not gotten 8.1 yet
Thanks for the heads up. Guess I'll hold off for a bit then.
if you enroll in the dev preview you can get 8.1 with GDR1/Update 1 (folders). I've had it on there for months
The old setup had a separate tab for new stuff, plus I loved finishing out a run walk a song after listening to a podcast and switching between the two programs is extra work.
The new podcast engine is pretty spiffy with much easier scrolling and the ability to just web search shit not on the major store fronts and pull them down. I wonder if it uses RSS feeds in the backend or something. I just wish it had the option to integrate it back into the music section.
part of the problem with the old podcasts section was the way that responsibilities previously lay. Before, Xbox Music team had to host (or at the very least do lots of work maintaining) each podcast page. This additional work also caused havoc in regards to obtaining rights for content, which I assume is the reasoning behind no international support.
The new separation breaks away Xbox Music from the Podcasts app, and now there is no rehosting of content. It's essentially a heavily tuned Bing search (IIRC, please don't quote me on this as it's been a while). Now, one could, and probably should, argue that the Xbox Music team should establish a communication/versioning to allow interoperability between the two models. Xbox Music could then search well-known locations to find podcasts, and add them to a particular section.
Maybe that will come in the future. For now, I'd prefer that team to continue working on the core functionality.
In essence, the problem lays within the ownership of the two apps, and you should say 'well, it's One Microsoft'. In reality, these people are have (in the past) been in different Orgs reporting to different managers with heavily differing views on what their product should be. Right now, I don't know where these two groups are located. They may both be in the Applications Org, which then would intimate a higher probability of inter-coupling, but I still wouldn't hold my breath.