I’ve been using the Google podcast app for years and it’s been great (except for a few bumps here and there.) Now, it’s going to be shut down and they want people to move to YouTube podcast or some other app. I’ve tried Spotify and Youtube and both are a mess and confusing compared to the Google app which is fairly simple and straightforward.
Does anyone have any good experiences they can share about one of the other podcast apps?
I’m happy with Pocket Casts
One of the most loved podcast player apps, Pocket Casts, is free for Android and iOS. It’s also available on Amazon Echo, Apple CarPlay, Apple Watch, Android Auto, and other platforms, some of which are restricted to Plus and Patron members (macOS, Windows, web player). This app has a tidy interface and great features. It’s easy to see what’s on your subscription list and which episodes you’ve started but still need to finish. It has 0.1 increments for increasing or decreasing the audio speed, so you can gently adjust the pace. Paying members get access to some platforms that are off-limits to free users, as well as cloud storage and exclusive app icons and themes.
Pocket Casts is free, and the Plus version costs $39.99 per year. The Patron subscription level costs $99.99 per year and adds more cloud storage (100GB, whereas Plus members get 20GB), early access to features, and a few other perks. It’s available on Android, iOS, macOS, the web, and Windows.
From this article
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-podcast-player-apps
I’ve been using Player FM for years and I’m very happy with it.
The free version of the app is great and their support very quick and efficient if you ever run into problems.
You can create your “play later” playlist, where you can download the podcast episodes to listen later and in whatever order you prefer. It also has a search feature that allows you to find new podcasts and even support adding new ones via RSS.
I have used Podcast Addict for years on Android.
Firefox.
Podcast Addict has +10M downloads, Pocket Casts +1M.
I tried Podcast Addict first but doesn’t have one of the first I searched for, Conan O’Brien.
Pocket Cast has it so trying the app now.
I’ve used Overcast for many years. It may be Apple only.
I remain a fan, but it’s sometimes a little laggy now - that’s probably my fault, with FAR too many podcasts still in my library (2,500+?).
Very good for playlists and fine-grained controls of what’s downloaded and what isn’t. I like the “Smart Speed” function: it doesn’t speed up speaking, but does shorten the little silences and pauses. Hmm … apparently that has saved me “an extra 4117 hours beyond speed adjustments alone”. When I settled on Overcast, I believe that feature was unique to them, but that was five or six years ago and things may well have changed since then.
But again, my information is probably out of date. I was confident in its feature set, relative to the others, when I settled on it back around 2018. I no longer know how it compares, but I’m happy with it and I’ve had no reason to move on.
So far Mozilla web browser has been the most consistent for me. Loads of other apps are pretty hit and miss. Data mining, privacy issues, not open, can only use their product on them etc etc.
Proper web browsers allow for a lot more “normal”