Apple marked 20 years of podcasting with an editorial selection of 20 shows it loves—not a ranked list or a measured verdict on the most impactful podcasts. The picks span launch years 2005 to 2024 and range from documentary storytelling and serialized reporting to comedy, news, music, history and health.
What Apple’s anniversary list represents
Apple titled its anniversary feature 20 Years, 20 Podcasts We Love. It presents the shows as favorites that illustrate how podcasting has developed and where it might go. Apple does not provide a scoring system or a universal definition of “impact,” so the list is best read as the company’s editorial view, not an objective top 20.
The selection emphasizes the experience of listening: distinctive voices, intimate conversation and carefully shaped storytelling. Because the titles span very different genres and formats, their order or inclusion does not establish a head-to-head comparison.
The 20 shows Apple selected
Apple groups its picks by launch-year period. The titles and years below follow Apple’s feature.
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2005–2010
- Love and Radio (2005)
- This American Life (2006)
- 99% Invisible (2010)
2011–2015
- The Truth (2012)
- The Read (2013)
- Song Exploder (2014)
- Serial (2014)
- Mystery Show (2015)
- Acquired (2015)
2016–2020
- Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang (2016)
- The Daily (2017)
- Call Her Daddy (2018)
- MOONFACE (2019)
- Dolly Parton’s America (2019)
- The Rest Is History (2020)
2021–2025
- Huberman Lab (2021)
- Suave (2021)
- Sweet Bobby (2021)
- Baby, This is Keke Palmer (2023)
- Therapuss with Jake Shane (2024)
What the selection says about podcasting
The range of picks reflects how broadly podcast formats developed: documentary and narrative nonfiction sit alongside daily news, fiction, design, music, comedy, business, history and health. Apple’s choices suggest that “impact” can mean shaping a genre or offering a distinctive listening style, but the feature does not assign a separate impact measure to each show.
Serial is the clearest numerical example Apple gives. The anniversary feature says it received over 5 million downloads in its first six weeks. That is Apple’s published figure; the feature does not independently audit it. The statistic is evidence of early reach, not a ranking method applied to all 20 selections.
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Why Apple dates the milestone to 2005
Apple’s historical anchor is June 28, 2005, when it announced podcast discovery, subscriptions, management and listening in iTunes 4.9. The company said users could subscribe to more than 3,000 free podcasts, with new episodes delivered to computers and iPods. Steve Jobs, then Apple’s CEO, called podcasting “the next generation of radio” in the announcement.
This marks Apple’s support for podcasts in iTunes; it should not be confused with a claim that Apple invented podcasting. The 20-year anniversary framing refers to that 2005 product milestone.
Rank #3
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What changed on Apple Podcasts after the anniversary
In a January 12, 2026 retrospective, Apple separately reported that transcripts had expanded to more than 125 million episodes in 13 languages. That dated platform update provides current listening context, but Apple does not present it as evidence for why the 20 shows were selected or as a measure of their cultural impact.
Quick Recap
Best Value
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Rank #4
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