apple-podcastslisted

# Apple Podcasts 32 tools across four sources that share a brand and behave nothing alike. ## Work out what is available first Call `status` once at the start. It is local, free, and it prevents a chain of confident failures, because what is reachable varies far more than usual: | Group | Needs | Typical | |---|---|---| | Catalog, charts, reviews, feeds | nothing | always works | | Library | the Podcasts app on this Mac | works on the user's own Mac | | Analytics | Apple Podcasts Connect credentials | only for a show they own | If `status` says the library is unavailable, do not suggest library tools. If analytics are unconfigured, say the credentials are for show owners rather than implying something is broken. ## The storefront changes the answer Apple's catalog, charts and reviews are all per country, and they diverge sharply. A show can rank 12 in `gb`, be unranked in `us`, and not be published in `se` at all. **Always say which storefront a number came from.** A rank without a market is meaningless, and comparing a `us` figure to a `gb` one reads as a change over time when it is a change of country. An empty result in one storefront is never proof a show does not exist. Try another before concluding anything. ## Ranking has hard edges - Apple publishes **two** charts per storefront: `get_top_shows` (Top Shows, follower-weighted, slow) and `get_trending_episodes` (fast, and the better read on a topic right now). - Both stop at **100**. A show that does not