Pocket Casts - Podcast Player
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Pocket Casts is the world's most powerful podcast platform
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About Pocket Casts - Podcast Player
Featured on Best 10 Apps for Listening to Podcasts
Pocket Casts is the world's most powerful podcast platform
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About Pocket Casts - Podcast Player
Pocket Casts is the world's most powerful podcast platform, an app by listeners, for listeners. Our podcast player provides next-level listening, search and discovery tools. Find your next obsession with our hand curated podcast recommendations for easy discovery, and seamlessly enjoy your favorite shows without the hassle of subscribing.
Here’s what the press has to say:
Android Central: “Pocket Casts is the best podcast app for Android”
The Verge: “The best podcast app for Android”
Named Google Play Top Developer, Google Play Editors’ Choice, and recipient of the Google Material Design Award.
Still not convinced? Allow us to walk you through some of our features:
BEST IN SHOW
Material design: Your podcasts have never looked so beautiful, colors change to complement podcast artwork
Themes: Whether you're a dark or light theme person we've got you covered. We even have you OLED lovers covered with our Extra Dark theme.
Everywhere: Android Auto, Chromecast, Alexa and Sonos. Listen to your podcasts in more places than ever before.
POWERFUL PLAYBACK
Up next: Automatically build a playback queue from your favorite shows. Sign in and have that Up Next queue sync to all your devices.
Trim silence: Cut silences from episodes so you finish them faster, saving hours.
Variable speed: Change the play speed from anywhere between 0.5 to 3x.
Volume boost: Increase the volume of voices, while decreasing background noise.
Stream: Play episodes on the fly.
Chapters: Jump between chapters easily, and enjoy embedded artwork that the author has added (we support MP3 and M4A chapter formats).
Audio & video: Play all of your favorite episodes, toggle video to audio.
Skip playback: Skip episode intros, jump through episodes with custom skip intervals.
Android Wear: Control playback from your wrist.
Sleep timer: We'll pause your episode so you can rest your weary head.
Chromecast: Cast episodes straight to your TV with a single tap.
Sonos: Browse and play your podcast collection directly from the Sonos app.
Android Auto: browse your podcasts and filters to find an interesting episode, then control playback. All without ever touching your phone.
SMART TOOLS
Sync: Subscriptions, Up Next, listening history, playback and filters are all securely stored in the cloud. You can pick up where you left off on another device and even the web.
Refresh: Let our servers check for new episodes, so you can get on with your day.
Notifications: We'll let you know when new episodes arrive, if you like.
Auto download: Automatically download episodes for offline playback.
Filters: Custom filters will organize your episodes.
Storage: All the tools you need to keep your podcasts tamed.
ALL YOUR FAVORITES
Discover: Subscribe to any podcast in iTunes and more. Browse by charts, networks and categories.
Share: Spread the word with podcast and episode sharing.
OPML: Jump on board without any hassle with OPML import. Export your collection at any time.
There are many more powerful, straight-forward features that make Pocket Casts the perfect podcasting app for you. So what are you waiting for?
Visit pocketcasts.com for more info about the web and other platforms supported by Pocket Casts.
Here’s what the press has to say:
Android Central: “Pocket Casts is the best podcast app for Android”
The Verge: “The best podcast app for Android”
Named Google Play Top Developer, Google Play Editors’ Choice, and recipient of the Google Material Design Award.
Still not convinced? Allow us to walk you through some of our features:
BEST IN SHOW
Material design: Your podcasts have never looked so beautiful, colors change to complement podcast artwork
Themes: Whether you're a dark or light theme person we've got you covered. We even have you OLED lovers covered with our Extra Dark theme.
Everywhere: Android Auto, Chromecast, Alexa and Sonos. Listen to your podcasts in more places than ever before.
POWERFUL PLAYBACK
Up next: Automatically build a playback queue from your favorite shows. Sign in and have that Up Next queue sync to all your devices.
Trim silence: Cut silences from episodes so you finish them faster, saving hours.
Variable speed: Change the play speed from anywhere between 0.5 to 3x.
Volume boost: Increase the volume of voices, while decreasing background noise.
Stream: Play episodes on the fly.
Chapters: Jump between chapters easily, and enjoy embedded artwork that the author has added (we support MP3 and M4A chapter formats).
Audio & video: Play all of your favorite episodes, toggle video to audio.
Skip playback: Skip episode intros, jump through episodes with custom skip intervals.
Android Wear: Control playback from your wrist.
Sleep timer: We'll pause your episode so you can rest your weary head.
Chromecast: Cast episodes straight to your TV with a single tap.
Sonos: Browse and play your podcast collection directly from the Sonos app.
Android Auto: browse your podcasts and filters to find an interesting episode, then control playback. All without ever touching your phone.
SMART TOOLS
Sync: Subscriptions, Up Next, listening history, playback and filters are all securely stored in the cloud. You can pick up where you left off on another device and even the web.
Refresh: Let our servers check for new episodes, so you can get on with your day.
Notifications: We'll let you know when new episodes arrive, if you like.
Auto download: Automatically download episodes for offline playback.
Filters: Custom filters will organize your episodes.
Storage: All the tools you need to keep your podcasts tamed.
ALL YOUR FAVORITES
Discover: Subscribe to any podcast in iTunes and more. Browse by charts, networks and categories.
Share: Spread the word with podcast and episode sharing.
OPML: Jump on board without any hassle with OPML import. Export your collection at any time.
There are many more powerful, straight-forward features that make Pocket Casts the perfect podcasting app for you. So what are you waiting for?
Visit pocketcasts.com for more info about the web and other platforms supported by Pocket Casts.
Ratings & Reviews
Write a Review
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Great podcatcher app, one big flaw
Apr 10, 2021 I love Pocket Casts. Sick of how buggy and confusing the proprietary Apple podcast app is, I switched to Pocket Casts over a year ago and haven’t looked back. The UI is much cleaner and easier to navigate. My one complaint is that the search feature is very basic and only searches for whole podcasts rather than podcast episodes. (So for example, let’s say I want to listen to a podcast episode about the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident; searching “Dyatlov Pass” wouldn’t yield episodes about Dyatlov Pass from various podcasts, it would only yield podcasts whose name happens to be similar to or contain the words “Dyatlov Pass”.) That’s a real shame because the one good thing about the proprietary Apple podcast app was that I liked using the search feature to search for some niche subject I was interested in, and I would discover new podcasts by listening to their episode about the thing I wanted to hear about. On Pocket Casts, I just have to just kind of browse their discover page and hope that I find some podcast that happens to have some episodes that interest me.more -
Best podcast app with a few quirks
Oct 31, 2020 I want to just echo what most other reviewers are saying, in that Pocket Casts is the best podcast player out there. The UI in my opinion should used as an example in exemplary design in UI/UX programs or schools. I’ve tried others like Overcast or Google Podcasts, but I keep coming back to Pocket Casts. They’ve really put a ton of effort in refining their app over the years, often including entirely new features for free. They’re also one of the few companies that includes a quality web player so you keep up with your podcasts while your on your computer. As someone who relies on this app daily, it’s only natural that some issues might arise from time to time. One feature I use heavily is the ability to Cast podcast episodes to our Google Home or Nest speakers. Most of the time it works fine, but lately it seems like there’s some communication or latency issues between the server and the app. There is a long standing issue where if you finish a podcast episode while Chromecasting and your phone’s screen locked, then when you unlock your phone and go back to the app, the episode you just finished will still show it’s progress as being where it was prior to the screen being locked. Overall, this app is a must have. None of the other podcast apps, including the overly praised Overcast, come close to matching the ease of use and simple pleasure of using Pocket Casts!more -
What I’ve been looking for... FINALLY!
Dec 3, 2020 I honestly don’t understand some of the negative reviews. Some are overly harsh for such minor inconveniences. I don’t know if the gripes are legitimate or just people expecting absolute 100% perfection from an app, and a developer with a stellar, bug-free track record. I had been using the Apple Podcast app for years but finally ditched it because of syncing issues between multiple devices (no matter how I tweaked the settings). I then tried at least ten others before landing on Pocket Casts. The other podcast apps were usable and each had its pros and cons, but Pocket Casts is the only app yet that syncs the way I need it to. I can listen on my iPhone, then log into my Mac (web interface) and pick right up where I left off. I haven’t tried the Mac app yet. I’m perfectly content with the other web page for listening. I also like the listening stats on the app and how it shows how much time I’ve saved with skipping, speed, trimming and so on. The layout is great and looks sleek and natural on the iPhone. As one user mentioned in a review, having folders of some sort would be nice. This way all of my podcasts aren’t lumped together, but can be separated by Sports, Science, etc... Other than this, I’m really liking what I’m seeing so far. I subscribed for the year because I really don’t see anything else out there being better. I’ve looked again and again and haven’t found it until now. Thanks!more -
Mar 30, 2021 Latest update is a step backwards. No more playlist managment, unable to mark eps as 'played'. Long-press menu is gone, replaced with swipe left & right which is alternately either way too sensitive or not enough. Very hit and miss, more miss than hit, unfortunately. Fellas, what the hell happend here?? This is just no good. If i could roll-back update to previous, i'd do that in an instant.more -
Look beyond the Apple store average and give Pocket Cast a look...you will not be disappointed!
Dec 13, 2019 I have been an Audible junkie for the past 5 years and just started listening to Podcasts about 6 months ago. I have literally tried most of the podcast apps (The Podcast App, Overcast, Castbox, Podbean, Himalaya, Breaker and Castro) in search of the best podcast app. To be honest, I did not try Pocket Casts because of the low rating on Apple App Store. I downloaded the Pocket Cast app the other day and think they have one of the best (if not the best) user interface of any podcast app I have tried with the best functionality. The interface is smooth, they have very playback effect available (speed control, trim the silence and volume boost), an easy to access notes section that gives you the option to jump to a certain section of the podcast if available, and a nice way to organize the podcasts you subscribe to (although Castbox give the greatest control). In addition, you can stream via Chromecast (not all apps provide this) and a really nice iPad app that syncs nicely with you iPhone app. This is really a great app! Look past the overall score of this app on the Apple store and give this app a look. You will not regret it!more
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Apr 9, 2021 Used to work great. Now the app consistently stops playing if my phone is locked and this isn't the app that is open. If I open the app it'll immediately start playing without me even pressing play. The sleep timer seems to be malfunctioning too in that it won't stop. It just plays my entire queue. I've woken up to podcasts still playing and/or episodes I haven't listened to archived.more -
Apr 8, 2021 EDIT. I'm moving to another podcast app. Support will not answer my questions about this issue. Apparently they have my money now and don't care about any issues. I'm sick and tired of downloading podcasts over and over again just to have them automatically deleted...I would avoid this app for now. OLD REVIEW Even though auto archive is turned off, it keeps deleting and archiving episodes. What the heck. Otherwise great app I suppose, although I've never tried anything else.more -
Bad update, unprofessional response
Mar 10, 2019 I was glad to find Pocket Casts at first. It was a decent cross-platform app, with a couple weird quirks, but the best option for me. I opted into the beta and wasn’t as fond of it, but decided to give it some time for me to adjust and explore. Some basic, useful features were lacking or implemented strangely and the UI change was a huge step back, considerably less intuitive. Unfortunately, they didn’t really improve on any of these problems for the release despite feedback from users. I know it’s impossible to give every user what they want. Plus, so many users are too entitled and demanding. That doesn’t warrant not listening to them at all, or responding flippantly and condescendingly to feedback. Many of the developer responses have been deleted because it “doesn’t represent who they are” (except ... yes it does, because that’s literally how they’re representing themselves). I’m not surprised to see the drop in their ratings, which they reset recently in hopes of erasing the negative ones, I guess? They already have the money of existing users, so maybe they don’t feel like it’s as important to respect them. But I know I will no longer be recommending Pocket Casts to anyone else. Fortunately, there are cross-platform alternatives I look forward to checking out instead, like Castbox.more -
BELIEVE the negative reviews!
Mar 24, 2021 You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than these developers. That may seem harsh, but it’s the truth. They love to take your money and give you nothing back for it. “You paid us money for the app when we promised no subscriptions or freemiums? Hah, thanks for the dough, sucker, we’re going free and not even giving you a trial of our now locked behind a paywall features!” Ethical developers have always grandfathered in purchasers of their apps when the go subscription, but these guys failed ethics in college. Just look at how many disgruntled customers they responded to, if you don’t believe me. I.E, NONE of them. Now, as for the app itself, it’s a miracle if it plays the full podcast. If it works on CarPlay, it’s another miracle! If the audio doesn’t constantly cut out, holy cow, call the Pope because this app is only four miracles away from sainthood! Maybe they’ve locked usability behind the paywall, as well. To summarize, don’t use this. Don’t even gaze in its direction. And especially don’t give these shady thieves a dollar of your money. You could spend it much better on a cheeseburger, thumb tacks, an empty cardboard box, or just by burning it and blowing the ashes in the wind.more -
Apr 2, 2021 This app has so much going for it except one very fatal flaw. ARCHIVE deletes the episode! That's not at all what archive means. I want to hide played episodes, not delete them. I wish I'd known that. Many podcasts aren't available online anymore and I wouldn't have deleted them locally had I known. Please bring back a way to hide played without removing them because this app SHOULD be a five-star app!more
- Smart design interface changes colors to complement beautiful podcast artwork
- Go mobile or listen at home! Full compatibility with Android Wear and Chromecast
- “Pocket Casts is the best podcast app for Android.” - AndroidCentral
Reviewed by Kaylin on March 7, 2018
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Best podcast app with a few quirks
Oct 31, 2020 I want to just echo what most other reviewers are saying, in that Pocket Casts is the best podcast player out there. The UI in my opinion should used as an example in exemplary design in UI/UX programs or schools. I’ve tried others like Overcast or Google Podcasts, but I keep coming back to Pocket Casts. They’ve really put a ton of effort in refining their app over the years, often including entirely new features for free. They’re also one of the few companies that includes a quality web player so you keep up with your podcasts while your on your computer. As someone who relies on this app daily, it’s only natural that some issues might arise from time to time. One feature I use heavily is the ability to Cast podcast episodes to our Google Home or Nest speakers. Most of the time it works fine, but lately it seems like there’s some communication or latency issues between the server and the app. There is a long standing issue where if you finish a podcast episode while Chromecasting and your phone’s screen locked, then when you unlock your phone and go back to the app, the episode you just finished will still show it’s progress as being where it was prior to the screen being locked. Overall, this app is a must have. None of the other podcast apps, including the overly praised Overcast, come close to matching the ease of use and simple pleasure of using Pocket Casts!more -
What I’ve been looking for... FINALLY!
Dec 3, 2020 I honestly don’t understand some of the negative reviews. Some are overly harsh for such minor inconveniences. I don’t know if the gripes are legitimate or just people expecting absolute 100% perfection from an app, and a developer with a stellar, bug-free track record. I had been using the Apple Podcast app for years but finally ditched it because of syncing issues between multiple devices (no matter how I tweaked the settings). I then tried at least ten others before landing on Pocket Casts. The other podcast apps were usable and each had its pros and cons, but Pocket Casts is the only app yet that syncs the way I need it to. I can listen on my iPhone, then log into my Mac (web interface) and pick right up where I left off. I haven’t tried the Mac app yet. I’m perfectly content with the other web page for listening. I also like the listening stats on the app and how it shows how much time I’ve saved with skipping, speed, trimming and so on. The layout is great and looks sleek and natural on the iPhone. As one user mentioned in a review, having folders of some sort would be nice. This way all of my podcasts aren’t lumped together, but can be separated by Sports, Science, etc... Other than this, I’m really liking what I’m seeing so far. I subscribed for the year because I really don’t see anything else out there being better. I’ve looked again and again and haven’t found it until now. Thanks!more -
Look beyond the Apple store average and give Pocket Cast a look...you will not be disappointed!
Dec 13, 2019 I have been an Audible junkie for the past 5 years and just started listening to Podcasts about 6 months ago. I have literally tried most of the podcast apps (The Podcast App, Overcast, Castbox, Podbean, Himalaya, Breaker and Castro) in search of the best podcast app. To be honest, I did not try Pocket Casts because of the low rating on Apple App Store. I downloaded the Pocket Cast app the other day and think they have one of the best (if not the best) user interface of any podcast app I have tried with the best functionality. The interface is smooth, they have very playback effect available (speed control, trim the silence and volume boost), an easy to access notes section that gives you the option to jump to a certain section of the podcast if available, and a nice way to organize the podcasts you subscribe to (although Castbox give the greatest control). In addition, you can stream via Chromecast (not all apps provide this) and a really nice iPad app that syncs nicely with you iPhone app. This is really a great app! Look past the overall score of this app on the Apple store and give this app a look. You will not regret it!more -
Apr 2, 2021 My go-to podcast app for years on Android and iPhone. I've been using Pocket Casts since 2015, and I've tried other newer apps but always return to it. Syncing across Android and iOS is super helpful and unique as far as I can tell. It's full featured and stable and has all you need for beginners or podcast pros.more -
Great update
Oct 6, 2020 Awesome app. So glad development is continuing!! However, Goldilocks still wants ability to filter per podcast instead of in the filtering menu. There’s only 3 out of 7 podcasts that I listen to regularly that put out duplicate or occasional unwanted content. The “filtering” additions are neat, it just doesn’t help in my situation. Podcast A puts out a 40 minute “best of” that I would rather not download, let alone add to up next. Podcast B and C release 20-40 minute podcasts that I do want to listen to. Occasionally they release 3-10 minute episodes that I would rather not download. In this case the one size fits all filter doesn’t help. And there is the wasted auto download of unwanted episodes that limit legitimate episodes from staying on my phone. The filtering is a cool feature, but it would work much better if you could apply filtering within each podcast’s settings -which would limit auto downloading - rather than an external filter for queuing episodes. I hope my explanation of how I use your app helps guide future development. This app is already hands down the best podcast app. P.S. Please allow a setting to control Apple watch’s playback controls. I specifically want to permanently remove playback speed. I can think of no instance where someone would need to consistently alter the speed at which someone is talking. Thanks for your time and further development!!more
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Great podcatcher app, one big flaw
Apr 10, 2021 I love Pocket Casts. Sick of how buggy and confusing the proprietary Apple podcast app is, I switched to Pocket Casts over a year ago and haven’t looked back. The UI is much cleaner and easier to navigate. My one complaint is that the search feature is very basic and only searches for whole podcasts rather than podcast episodes. (So for example, let’s say I want to listen to a podcast episode about the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident; searching “Dyatlov Pass” wouldn’t yield episodes about Dyatlov Pass from various podcasts, it would only yield podcasts whose name happens to be similar to or contain the words “Dyatlov Pass”.) That’s a real shame because the one good thing about the proprietary Apple podcast app was that I liked using the search feature to search for some niche subject I was interested in, and I would discover new podcasts by listening to their episode about the thing I wanted to hear about. On Pocket Casts, I just have to just kind of browse their discover page and hope that I find some podcast that happens to have some episodes that interest me.more -
Mar 30, 2021 Latest update is a step backwards. No more playlist managment, unable to mark eps as 'played'. Long-press menu is gone, replaced with swipe left & right which is alternately either way too sensitive or not enough. Very hit and miss, more miss than hit, unfortunately. Fellas, what the hell happend here?? This is just no good. If i could roll-back update to previous, i'd do that in an instant.more -
Apr 1, 2021 This is one of the best podcast players in the market. I'm happy to support them. If they had just ONE more feature, it would take the cake: the ability for listeners to leave reviews per podcast episode. Done. It would be HANDS DOWN the best anywhere and would get my 5th star in this review! Please make this happen!more -
Apr 4, 2021 Best podcasting app in my experience, but I hate that every update re-enables auto-archiving, and I only notice when I try to search for an episode and it's hidden by the archive filter. I'd at least appreciate an "unarchive all" button, if the feature can't be disabled and stay disabled through the update process.more -
Mar 30, 2021 Great app but one major thing missing is ability to stop autoplaying Up Next podcasts. Yes, you can set the Zzz but you have to do it everytime. Would be great if you could choose to set it as default. Other than that, can't fault it.more
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I’m sad that I have to switch to another app
May 21, 2020 I’ve been using that app for well over two years. Since then, it’s been my go to for podcasts because it has a great interface and is easy to use. However, I don’t know why but I’ve been having so many problems with it lately. The main one is that podcasts won’t load. I don’t always have space on my phone to download my podcasts since I take a lot of photos and video on a day to day basis, meaning I stream a lot of my content. For some reason, I always have problems with podcasts from this app recently. It’ll load a couple of seconds, then it will refuse to play anything for a while, then all of a sudden it’ll start working again. It’s not like I’m losing internet connection, as it will even happen on WiFi. Sometimes it’ll even do it with downloaded podcasts. Then I have even more problems with CarPlay. If I plug my phone in to use pocket casts, sometimes it’ll just completely freeze everything on my phone until I unplug and restart my phone. It’s only with this app. That all being said, I still enjoyed my time with this app and I loved its simplicity, which is why I’m sad to see it go now that I’m switching to another app that doesn’t give me these problems. I’ll come back eventually if these bugs get fixed. Till then, so long my friend.more -
Syncing is still really bad if you listen on two devices.
Jul 18, 2019 There are many good things about PocketCast (Video Support, Playback Effects, background downloading, notifications, etc.). But there are three things that bother me. 1) If you listen on an iPad and and iPhone regularly your syncing will be messed up all the time. For instance, open iPad app and watch a video show. Then open on your phone later an audio show and stop. Perhaps that evening you open your iPad again to resume the video you were watching that morning. It will sync the iPad back to your iPhone the play position of your audio podcast from that morning, not where you left off on your iPhone later in the day. I’m constantly opening Pocket Casts on my phone to find that my listening position was reverted back 20-30 minutes earlier than I left off. 2) I think the playback screen has an unnecessary bar at the bottom with the tools. Remove that bar and just put the icons for playback effects and others without it. 3) The cover art for the podcast is not centered properly on the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max iPhone. That’s just poor design. Please Russell and Co. fix these problems.more -
Apr 1, 2021 Probably the best podcast app for me but I have no idea why some podcasts cut out when using Chromecast to play to another device. One podcast literally just stops playing exactly 12 minutes after you start it. Check the app after that, open the Chromecast option menu and it says 'No Media Selected'. Not sure if it's the server the cast streams from, Chromecast or Pocket Casts that's broken. Infuriating though, other casts have no such problems. Very strange.more -
Apr 8, 2021 Android Auto support was broken on Version 7.16 and is still broken on 7.17. AA Voice commands, especially the vital "Play up next in Pocket Casts" have been totally broken on AA for a while now and no voice commands work. I emailed Support and they replied asking me to update to 7.17. I did and replied that the voice commands still didn't work. Support stopped replying. Haven't heard back since and voice commands are still broken. Samsung S20 Ultra Android 11 Pocket Casts 7.17more -
Disappointing search functions
Oct 30, 2020 Unfortunately you cannot put parentheses around a term and have it look for an exact match. That makes it frustratingly inefficient to find something you are looking for. As an example, I looked for “Bill Hader” in parentheses, and got everything from Bill Maher to Bill Nye the Science Guy. The search doesn’t look through specific episode titles or descriptions either. In the stock Apple app, you can search for an actor, and it will list all of the shows where he was a guest for an episode. In the stock Apple app, you can search for a specific incident or topic, and it will list all the shows where they featured that topic in an episode. The UI and the controls are pretty nice, but none of that matters if I can’t search for content I want to listen to.more
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Apr 9, 2021 Used to work great. Now the app consistently stops playing if my phone is locked and this isn't the app that is open. If I open the app it'll immediately start playing without me even pressing play. The sleep timer seems to be malfunctioning too in that it won't stop. It just plays my entire queue. I've woken up to podcasts still playing and/or episodes I haven't listened to archived.more -
Bad update, unprofessional response
Mar 10, 2019 I was glad to find Pocket Casts at first. It was a decent cross-platform app, with a couple weird quirks, but the best option for me. I opted into the beta and wasn’t as fond of it, but decided to give it some time for me to adjust and explore. Some basic, useful features were lacking or implemented strangely and the UI change was a huge step back, considerably less intuitive. Unfortunately, they didn’t really improve on any of these problems for the release despite feedback from users. I know it’s impossible to give every user what they want. Plus, so many users are too entitled and demanding. That doesn’t warrant not listening to them at all, or responding flippantly and condescendingly to feedback. Many of the developer responses have been deleted because it “doesn’t represent who they are” (except ... yes it does, because that’s literally how they’re representing themselves). I’m not surprised to see the drop in their ratings, which they reset recently in hopes of erasing the negative ones, I guess? They already have the money of existing users, so maybe they don’t feel like it’s as important to respect them. But I know I will no longer be recommending Pocket Casts to anyone else. Fortunately, there are cross-platform alternatives I look forward to checking out instead, like Castbox.more -
Mar 31, 2021 This app, with the rise of spotify podcasts is now obsolete. I find my most listened to podcast there and why not use it since I'm paying for it for music anyway. But the big issue is that Pocket Casts is annoying. I tried to kill the notification of a show I never finished but the only way to do that was to force close it. And then it came back. Annoying! App deleted. BYE!more -
So much good but one fatal flaw
Nov 19, 2020 I like so much about this app, and if you subscribe to a small number of pods you might enjoy it. But I subscribe to a lot. And there is no way to group them- if you subscribe to 100 podcasts they are just all listed on one big page. Now, there are filters but they are for episodes. So you can say, give me all I played episodes, or all episodes longer than an hour, and it mixes them all into a playlist. But if you just want to group your news shows, your fiction stories, your true crime, etc- no way to do that. I quit using this app after the fastest way for me to find the show I was looking for became too try and subscribe to it again and that would jump me to the page to play the next episode. And this isn’t a flaw- they want people to use filters and not folders. I don’t know why, and this is a long-standing complaint. I’ll occasionally check back to see if anything changed, but until then it’s just become unusable for me.more -
Features Are Great, But Won’t Stop Crashing
May 26, 2019 I got this app because I wanted the automatic downloading and queuing features, and I’ve found those incredibly valuable. I can have my favorite podcasts automatically play next as soon as episodes are available and maintain a queue more easily than I can in the Apple Podcasts app. Also, the more flexible playback rates and Trim Silence features are fantastic. I would give this app 5 stars if it didn’t randomly crash all the time. It was whenever the most recent significant aesthetic update happened (the old version worked well), but now it will crash while I’m listening to a podcast and have my phone in my pocket or connected to my car. I literally do nothing to provoke it. The interface also freezes sometimes and forces me to quit it and restart, which is frustrating since the mechanics of playing back from an RSS feed don’t seem to be the most complicated part of this app.more
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Apr 8, 2021 EDIT. I'm moving to another podcast app. Support will not answer my questions about this issue. Apparently they have my money now and don't care about any issues. I'm sick and tired of downloading podcasts over and over again just to have them automatically deleted...I would avoid this app for now. OLD REVIEW Even though auto archive is turned off, it keeps deleting and archiving episodes. What the heck. Otherwise great app I suppose, although I've never tried anything else.more -
BELIEVE the negative reviews!
Mar 24, 2021 You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than these developers. That may seem harsh, but it’s the truth. They love to take your money and give you nothing back for it. “You paid us money for the app when we promised no subscriptions or freemiums? Hah, thanks for the dough, sucker, we’re going free and not even giving you a trial of our now locked behind a paywall features!” Ethical developers have always grandfathered in purchasers of their apps when the go subscription, but these guys failed ethics in college. Just look at how many disgruntled customers they responded to, if you don’t believe me. I.E, NONE of them. Now, as for the app itself, it’s a miracle if it plays the full podcast. If it works on CarPlay, it’s another miracle! If the audio doesn’t constantly cut out, holy cow, call the Pope because this app is only four miracles away from sainthood! Maybe they’ve locked usability behind the paywall, as well. To summarize, don’t use this. Don’t even gaze in its direction. And especially don’t give these shady thieves a dollar of your money. You could spend it much better on a cheeseburger, thumb tacks, an empty cardboard box, or just by burning it and blowing the ashes in the wind.more -
Apr 2, 2021 This app has so much going for it except one very fatal flaw. ARCHIVE deletes the episode! That's not at all what archive means. I want to hide played episodes, not delete them. I wish I'd known that. Many podcasts aren't available online anymore and I wouldn't have deleted them locally had I known. Please bring back a way to hide played without removing them because this app SHOULD be a five-star app!more -
Apr 1, 2021 Their communication with customers is vitriolic at best--from updates, to outreach, to QA. Atrocious would be a complement. The app has gone from great, to garbage (the past two years). Now it crashes about 8x a day, on a new flagship device. Stay away, at every tier.more -
Apr 3, 2021 Doesn't do playlists - I like to save episodes I might not want to listen to immediately to different playlists, like for driving or for focusing, etc. This player doesn't do that anymore, which seems like an extremely basic requirement of a podcast player.more
What’s Groovy
Overall, this is a great app! Great listening experience, easy to subscribe, easy to queue new podcast episodes, auto adding and auto downloading options for each podcast! However, I have one problem with it that drives me absolutely nuts. You can sort your podcasts into any order on your own, but there is no way to place them into folders or any other sort of organization. So when you're me and are subscribed to close to 150 podcasts (and climbing), it gets difficult to find an old one.
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What’s Subpar
Constant crashing/freezing for about three weeks now. I'm not sure if this is limited to video podcasts, or the pixel 4a, or both, or neither. It will sometimes make it 15 minutes into a podcast. Sometimes 5 minutes. Seldome through an entire one. And currently it won't make it 20 seconds into the one I'm on. Regardless of the issue, I'm on a road trip right now and I've had it. I'm switching to something else before this app gives me road rage.
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Filter Reviews
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Great podcatcher app, one big flaw
I love Pocket Casts. Sick of how buggy and confusing the proprietary Apple podcast app is, I switched to Pocket Casts over a year ago and haven’t looked back. The UI is much cleaner and easier to navigate. My one complaint is that the search feature is very basic and only searches for whole podcasts rather than podcast episodes. (So for example, let’s say I want to listen to a podcast episode about the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident; searching “Dyatlov Pass” wouldn’t yield episodes about Dyatlov Pass from various podcasts, it would only yield podcasts whose name happens to be similar to or contain the words “Dyatlov Pass”.) That’s a real shame because the one good thing about the proprietary Apple podcast app was that I liked using the search feature to search for some niche subject I was interested in, and I would discover new podcasts by listening to their episode about the thing I wanted to hear about. On Pocket Casts, I just have to just kind of browse their discover page and hope that I find some podcast that happens to have some episodes that interest me. -
Best podcast app with a few quirks
I want to just echo what most other reviewers are saying, in that Pocket Casts is the best podcast player out there. The UI in my opinion should used as an example in exemplary design in UI/UX programs or schools. I’ve tried others like Overcast or Google Podcasts, but I keep coming back to Pocket Casts. They’ve really put a ton of effort in refining their app over the years, often including entirely new features for free. They’re also one of the few companies that includes a quality web player so you keep up with your podcasts while your on your computer. As someone who relies on this app daily, it’s only natural that some issues might arise from time to time. One feature I use heavily is the ability to Cast podcast episodes to our Google Home or Nest speakers. Most of the time it works fine, but lately it seems like there’s some communication or latency issues between the server and the app. There is a long standing issue where if you finish a podcast episode while Chromecasting and your phone’s screen locked, then when you unlock your phone and go back to the app, the episode you just finished will still show it’s progress as being where it was prior to the screen being locked. Overall, this app is a must have. None of the other podcast apps, including the overly praised Overcast, come close to matching the ease of use and simple pleasure of using Pocket Casts! -
What I’ve been looking for... FINALLY!
I honestly don’t understand some of the negative reviews. Some are overly harsh for such minor inconveniences. I don’t know if the gripes are legitimate or just people expecting absolute 100% perfection from an app, and a developer with a stellar, bug-free track record. I had been using the Apple Podcast app for years but finally ditched it because of syncing issues between multiple devices (no matter how I tweaked the settings). I then tried at least ten others before landing on Pocket Casts. The other podcast apps were usable and each had its pros and cons, but Pocket Casts is the only app yet that syncs the way I need it to. I can listen on my iPhone, then log into my Mac (web interface) and pick right up where I left off. I haven’t tried the Mac app yet. I’m perfectly content with the other web page for listening. I also like the listening stats on the app and how it shows how much time I’ve saved with skipping, speed, trimming and so on. The layout is great and looks sleek and natural on the iPhone. As one user mentioned in a review, having folders of some sort would be nice. This way all of my podcasts aren’t lumped together, but can be separated by Sports, Science, etc... Other than this, I’m really liking what I’m seeing so far. I subscribed for the year because I really don’t see anything else out there being better. I’ve looked again and again and haven’t found it until now. Thanks! -
Latest update is a step backwards. No more playlist managment, unable to mark eps as 'played'. Long-press menu is gone, replaced with swipe left & right which is alternately either way too sensitive or not enough. Very hit and miss, more miss than hit, unfortunately. Fellas, what the hell happend here?? This is just no good. If i could roll-back update to previous, i'd do that in an instant.
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Look beyond the Apple store average and give Pocket Cast a look...you will not be disappointed!
I have been an Audible junkie for the past 5 years and just started listening to Podcasts about 6 months ago. I have literally tried most of the podcast apps (The Podcast App, Overcast, Castbox, Podbean, Himalaya, Breaker and Castro) in search of the best podcast app. To be honest, I did not try Pocket Casts because of the low rating on Apple App Store. I downloaded the Pocket Cast app the other day and think they have one of the best (if not the best) user interface of any podcast app I have tried with the best functionality. The interface is smooth, they have very playback effect available (speed control, trim the silence and volume boost), an easy to access notes section that gives you the option to jump to a certain section of the podcast if available, and a nice way to organize the podcasts you subscribe to (although Castbox give the greatest control). In addition, you can stream via Chromecast (not all apps provide this) and a really nice iPad app that syncs nicely with you iPhone app. This is really a great app! Look past the overall score of this app on the Apple store and give this app a look. You will not regret it! -
This is one of the best podcast players in the market. I'm happy to support them. If they had just ONE more feature, it would take the cake: the ability for listeners to leave reviews per podcast episode. Done. It would be HANDS DOWN the best anywhere and would get my 5th star in this review! Please make this happen!
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I’m sad that I have to switch to another app
I’ve been using that app for well over two years. Since then, it’s been my go to for podcasts because it has a great interface and is easy to use. However, I don’t know why but I’ve been having so many problems with it lately. The main one is that podcasts won’t load. I don’t always have space on my phone to download my podcasts since I take a lot of photos and video on a day to day basis, meaning I stream a lot of my content. For some reason, I always have problems with podcasts from this app recently. It’ll load a couple of seconds, then it will refuse to play anything for a while, then all of a sudden it’ll start working again. It’s not like I’m losing internet connection, as it will even happen on WiFi. Sometimes it’ll even do it with downloaded podcasts. Then I have even more problems with CarPlay. If I plug my phone in to use pocket casts, sometimes it’ll just completely freeze everything on my phone until I unplug and restart my phone. It’s only with this app. That all being said, I still enjoyed my time with this app and I loved its simplicity, which is why I’m sad to see it go now that I’m switching to another app that doesn’t give me these problems. I’ll come back eventually if these bugs get fixed. Till then, so long my friend. -
Best podcasting app in my experience, but I hate that every update re-enables auto-archiving, and I only notice when I try to search for an episode and it's hidden by the archive filter. I'd at least appreciate an "unarchive all" button, if the feature can't be disabled and stay disabled through the update process.
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Syncing is still really bad if you listen on two devices.
There are many good things about PocketCast (Video Support, Playback Effects, background downloading, notifications, etc.). But there are three things that bother me. 1) If you listen on an iPad and and iPhone regularly your syncing will be messed up all the time. For instance, open iPad app and watch a video show. Then open on your phone later an audio show and stop. Perhaps that evening you open your iPad again to resume the video you were watching that morning. It will sync the iPad back to your iPhone the play position of your audio podcast from that morning, not where you left off on your iPhone later in the day. I’m constantly opening Pocket Casts on my phone to find that my listening position was reverted back 20-30 minutes earlier than I left off. 2) I think the playback screen has an unnecessary bar at the bottom with the tools. Remove that bar and just put the icons for playback effects and others without it. 3) The cover art for the podcast is not centered properly on the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max iPhone. That’s just poor design. Please Russell and Co. fix these problems. -
Great app but one major thing missing is ability to stop autoplaying Up Next podcasts. Yes, you can set the Zzz but you have to do it everytime. Would be great if you could choose to set it as default. Other than that, can't fault it.
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Switched back!!
Left Spotify. Will only use it for Rogan and music. This is the best app for podcasts! Glad to be back. -
Loving it, just could use a little search upgrade
I really appreciate this app, *especially* that it doesn’t play this Apple move of auto-downloading so, so many podcasts after so, so many times telling it not to. But their search feature is next to none it seems—would you all be able to upgrade the search a bit? I’d be willing to pay a buck a month for this app, for ex., if you did...so not sure if that means an upgrade option (not sure if there is one), but just my two cents... -
Great podcatcher app, one big flaw
I love Pocket Casts. Sick of how buggy and confusing the proprietary Apple podcast app is, I switched to Pocket Casts over a year ago and haven’t looked back. The UI is much cleaner and easier to navigate. My one complaint is that the search feature is very basic and only searches for whole podcasts rather than podcast episodes. (So for example, let’s say I want to listen to a podcast episode about the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident; searching “Dyatlov Pass” wouldn’t yield episodes about Dyatlov Pass from various podcasts, it would only yield podcasts whose name happens to be similar to or contain the words “Dyatlov Pass”.) That’s a real shame because the one good thing about the proprietary Apple podcast app was that I liked using the search feature to search for some niche subject I was interested in, and I would discover new podcasts by listening to their episode about the thing I wanted to hear about. On Pocket Casts, I just have to just kind of browse their discover page and hope that I find some podcast that happens to have some episodes that interest me. -
Back to 5 stars
I reviewed this yesterday thinking something was wrong with the functionality of the app. Turns out something is wrong with the functionality of my head. The queue limit updated to only 10 and I didn’t catch that (not sure if new feature but I didn’t change anything). Anyways app is perfect again clean slick and does everything I want and need. -
Love it!
I’ve tried several podcast apps (I’m a relatively light user, dedicatedly following a few particular podcasts and dabbling in others occasionally) and have found this one to the the most intuitively user friendly of them all. The features are really straightforward and well-placed/organized, with just the right degree of customization for a tailored experience. In particular, I love the “Archive” feature as a way to manage episodes, and have had no trouble managing my “up next” listens as with other apps. -
Corrupted files???
I’ve been using pocket casts for years, but recently ive been getting corruption errors regularly, causing me to switch to iOS podcasts. Cmon guys what’s going on... -
Love this app!
I wasn't going to write a review today but after reading the version notes and seeing what a great sense of humor the writer has I just felt like I should. The thing that made me love Pocket Casts is that I can use the app and then my computer browser and this SERVICE actually keeps my podcasts updated and I can pick up where I left off while saving phone battery too. That is the whole reason I use it. I tried *many* different platforms, all the big names, that made that claim and I'm sorry to say they lie. To me that was worth the $10. PER YEAR PEOPLE. Not per month....per YEAR! Some of you spend more on coffee in a day than that. So idk, go without that extra coffee for 2 days and you've covered the whole year pretty much. -
Speeds go wild
I’ve loved this app for years but over the past week the app has just changed the speed mid-podcast. At first I thought maybe it happened in my pocket which was weird because my screen was off and I have to enter a pass code to open my phone and get to that control. Then today it happened while my phone was sitting on a table untouched. Please fix this! -
Great app
I have used this app on both android and iOS- love it and love how I can hop back and forth. Very easy and simple to use. And it’s one on both platforms the really just works. Developers - PLEASE make a Roku app that syncs! Man that would be fantastic. -
BEST PODCAST APP EVER
This app is definitely In my 5 most used apps of all time, the interface is beautiful and hold so many useful tools, it’s so customizable and offers all the podcasts I could ever listen to. Never have had a major issue with the software. For these reason I am giving this application 5 stars. Thank you for existing! - Loyal User
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Best podcast app with a few quirks
I want to just echo what most other reviewers are saying, in that Pocket Casts is the best podcast player out there. The UI in my opinion should used as an example in exemplary design in UI/UX programs or schools. I’ve tried others like Overcast or Google Podcasts, but I keep coming back to Pocket Casts. They’ve really put a ton of effort in refining their app over the years, often including entirely new features for free. They’re also one of the few companies that includes a quality web player so you keep up with your podcasts while your on your computer. As someone who relies on this app daily, it’s only natural that some issues might arise from time to time. One feature I use heavily is the ability to Cast podcast episodes to our Google Home or Nest speakers. Most of the time it works fine, but lately it seems like there’s some communication or latency issues between the server and the app. There is a long standing issue where if you finish a podcast episode while Chromecasting and your phone’s screen locked, then when you unlock your phone and go back to the app, the episode you just finished will still show it’s progress as being where it was prior to the screen being locked. Overall, this app is a must have. None of the other podcast apps, including the overly praised Overcast, come close to matching the ease of use and simple pleasure of using Pocket Casts! -
What I’ve been looking for... FINALLY!
I honestly don’t understand some of the negative reviews. Some are overly harsh for such minor inconveniences. I don’t know if the gripes are legitimate or just people expecting absolute 100% perfection from an app, and a developer with a stellar, bug-free track record. I had been using the Apple Podcast app for years but finally ditched it because of syncing issues between multiple devices (no matter how I tweaked the settings). I then tried at least ten others before landing on Pocket Casts. The other podcast apps were usable and each had its pros and cons, but Pocket Casts is the only app yet that syncs the way I need it to. I can listen on my iPhone, then log into my Mac (web interface) and pick right up where I left off. I haven’t tried the Mac app yet. I’m perfectly content with the other web page for listening. I also like the listening stats on the app and how it shows how much time I’ve saved with skipping, speed, trimming and so on. The layout is great and looks sleek and natural on the iPhone. As one user mentioned in a review, having folders of some sort would be nice. This way all of my podcasts aren’t lumped together, but can be separated by Sports, Science, etc... Other than this, I’m really liking what I’m seeing so far. I subscribed for the year because I really don’t see anything else out there being better. I’ve looked again and again and haven’t found it until now. Thanks! -
Look beyond the Apple store average and give Pocket Cast a look...you will not be disappointed!
I have been an Audible junkie for the past 5 years and just started listening to Podcasts about 6 months ago. I have literally tried most of the podcast apps (The Podcast App, Overcast, Castbox, Podbean, Himalaya, Breaker and Castro) in search of the best podcast app. To be honest, I did not try Pocket Casts because of the low rating on Apple App Store. I downloaded the Pocket Cast app the other day and think they have one of the best (if not the best) user interface of any podcast app I have tried with the best functionality. The interface is smooth, they have very playback effect available (speed control, trim the silence and volume boost), an easy to access notes section that gives you the option to jump to a certain section of the podcast if available, and a nice way to organize the podcasts you subscribe to (although Castbox give the greatest control). In addition, you can stream via Chromecast (not all apps provide this) and a really nice iPad app that syncs nicely with you iPhone app. This is really a great app! Look past the overall score of this app on the Apple store and give this app a look. You will not regret it! -
My go-to podcast app for years on Android and iPhone. I've been using Pocket Casts since 2015, and I've tried other newer apps but always return to it. Syncing across Android and iOS is super helpful and unique as far as I can tell. It's full featured and stable and has all you need for beginners or podcast pros.
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Great update
Awesome app. So glad development is continuing!! However, Goldilocks still wants ability to filter per podcast instead of in the filtering menu. There’s only 3 out of 7 podcasts that I listen to regularly that put out duplicate or occasional unwanted content. The “filtering” additions are neat, it just doesn’t help in my situation. Podcast A puts out a 40 minute “best of” that I would rather not download, let alone add to up next. Podcast B and C release 20-40 minute podcasts that I do want to listen to. Occasionally they release 3-10 minute episodes that I would rather not download. In this case the one size fits all filter doesn’t help. And there is the wasted auto download of unwanted episodes that limit legitimate episodes from staying on my phone. The filtering is a cool feature, but it would work much better if you could apply filtering within each podcast’s settings -which would limit auto downloading - rather than an external filter for queuing episodes. I hope my explanation of how I use your app helps guide future development. This app is already hands down the best podcast app. P.S. Please allow a setting to control Apple watch’s playback controls. I specifically want to permanently remove playback speed. I can think of no instance where someone would need to consistently alter the speed at which someone is talking. Thanks for your time and further development!! -
Better than Default Podcast App Especially on Apple Watch
I listen to 20+ podcasts and have used Pocket Casts for years. It is so much better than the default Apple Podcasts app at handling lots of podcasts and episodes. Now with the latest update that includes Apple Watch sync and cellular streaming without your iPhone nearby I can finally leave my iPhone behind while working out. Pocket Casts seamlessly remembers where I am mid-podcast when I switch from phone to watch. My Apple Watch had been in a drawer the last few months until today because the default Podcasts app is an organizational mess, rarely remembers playback position between devices, and has a really bad implementation of a queue. You have to pay for the Pocket Casts Plus tier but it’s well worth the $1 per month if you have an Apple Watch and listen to more than 1 or 2 podcasts regularly. -
Been using for a while now. Previously used Podcast Addict. I switched because I wanted easy syncing between devices. At first I missed all the customizability PA had but Pocket Casts regularly gets updates and can now do everything I want. You have to pay a subscription now but I purchased it when it was pay to own and am grandfathered into no fee. The subscription is pretty affordable for the value I get out of it so I'd probably still pay for it of I had to.
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My Podcast Home
I never liked Apple’s Podcasts app but I tried other apps, even gave some a second chance, but always had to come back to Apple’s for some of their features. After trying Pocket Casts for over a year now, I am so so happy I’ve found a podcast app that I love. Appreciate how customizable the skip and go back times are, the look and ease-of-use of the podcast list, where episode notes appear, managing episode queuing, it’s all great. After reading some other reviews, I gotta say the features behind the paywall are NOT a problem to me. If I ever needed the cloud storage or Watch version, I’d pay the small yearly subscription to devs who keep working on an app I’m really happy to have. It’d be nice to switch filters more easily (like one tap to go from filtering new releases to filtering downloads), but that’s the tiniest wish. Happily using this app every day! -
Fantastic
I was looking for a way to cast podcasts from my iPhone or iPad to my Google Home and some online suggestions pointed me toward this app. At first I was wary to pay for the app but I don’t regret it. Others complain about the UI and I find it pretty simple and nice to use. Everything is organized in a way that I can manage the podcasts I’m subscribed to. Another great thing is the cross platform support. While the desktop app costs an additional $10, it isn’t that bad considering it’s a one-off fee. Instead of paying per-month or per-year, I think it’s better to just pay one time and be done. I can easily start a podcast in the car and later in the day continue it in the same spot (give or take a few seconds) on my computer or iPad. -
Best Podcast App on the Market!!
I rarely write reviews, but Pocket Casts deserves a five star from me. I’ve had Pocket Casts for a while after switching over from Apple’s. I can firmly say that this app is miles ahead from every other podcast app available. They over a slick design, simplicity, and amazing customizations. You can customize the playback and skip times to help you skip ads, there’s a volume booster for podcasts that are a bit more quiet, and it has a feature that allows you to cut silence in podcasts. The best part: this is all on the free version and thats only a few of the things you can do on it for free. Pocket Casts also doesn’t have ads nor do they pressure you to buy their premium version. I recommend this app to anyone looking for a good podcast provider.
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Great podcatcher app, one big flaw
I love Pocket Casts. Sick of how buggy and confusing the proprietary Apple podcast app is, I switched to Pocket Casts over a year ago and haven’t looked back. The UI is much cleaner and easier to navigate. My one complaint is that the search feature is very basic and only searches for whole podcasts rather than podcast episodes. (So for example, let’s say I want to listen to a podcast episode about the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident; searching “Dyatlov Pass” wouldn’t yield episodes about Dyatlov Pass from various podcasts, it would only yield podcasts whose name happens to be similar to or contain the words “Dyatlov Pass”.) That’s a real shame because the one good thing about the proprietary Apple podcast app was that I liked using the search feature to search for some niche subject I was interested in, and I would discover new podcasts by listening to their episode about the thing I wanted to hear about. On Pocket Casts, I just have to just kind of browse their discover page and hope that I find some podcast that happens to have some episodes that interest me. -
Latest update is a step backwards. No more playlist managment, unable to mark eps as 'played'. Long-press menu is gone, replaced with swipe left & right which is alternately either way too sensitive or not enough. Very hit and miss, more miss than hit, unfortunately. Fellas, what the hell happend here?? This is just no good. If i could roll-back update to previous, i'd do that in an instant.
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This is one of the best podcast players in the market. I'm happy to support them. If they had just ONE more feature, it would take the cake: the ability for listeners to leave reviews per podcast episode. Done. It would be HANDS DOWN the best anywhere and would get my 5th star in this review! Please make this happen!
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Best podcasting app in my experience, but I hate that every update re-enables auto-archiving, and I only notice when I try to search for an episode and it's hidden by the archive filter. I'd at least appreciate an "unarchive all" button, if the feature can't be disabled and stay disabled through the update process.
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Great app but one major thing missing is ability to stop autoplaying Up Next podcasts. Yes, you can set the Zzz but you have to do it everytime. Would be great if you could choose to set it as default. Other than that, can't fault it.
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Differences from 6.x to 7.3
It’s now a better tool for episode cherry-pickers. The ability to sort by Downloaded status brings the 5 you’ve pulled down from a list of 500 to the fore. It’s strange that you cannot now, by default, tell a downloaded episode from an undownloaded one, but there’s a setting to fix that. I also appreciate the new option to delay the deletion of a completed episode for 24 hours. Combined with a new End Of Episode setting for the sleep timer, this removes the stress of falling asleep to an episode you might run off the end of. For my uses, the only downside, and a minor one at that, is reduced information density in the episode list. You can’t see as many on a screen anymore, and the new, omnipresent Search field (rarely useful) takes up additional vertical space, making a very small knothole indeed when combined with the miniplayer and bottom toolbar. I’d suggest making Search show only when pulling from the very top of the list, as is a convention in many other apps, or just let me scroll it off the page as the episode list scrolls. -
Search function and autoplay
The only gripe I have with this app is that the search function isn't particularly helpful. General search will only yield words within a podcast’s whole title (rather than the title or description of the episode). Only within that podcast’s listing can you sift through the episodes themselves using the search function. This means that finding individual podcasts on any particular subject is quite hard, and is only really possible if the entire podcast is dedicated to said subject. I re-downloaded apple’s podcasting app just to do searches. I also don’t know if other users love the auto play function, but all it does for me is cycle through the last thirty seconds of ads for every podcast I haven’t quite finished. Other than that, the app is quite nifty. -
New user on the new version
I didn’t have any particular attachment to the old way the app worked so I can review it with a fresh slate, and I have to say I like it. - I love being able to fine-tune the tidying up of my subscription feeds with unplayed / in progress / archived / played. Having played episodes handled differently from episodes I wasn’t interested in at the time makes it easy to go back through the archives later when I’m looking to comb through the backlog. - The synched “Next Up” list travels with me between my phone, home, and office computers. - The swiping gestures to parse episodes is a lot smoother than having to tap on every episode to add to queue as a three press operation. - Discoverability is fine but angled more towards the major podcasts you’ve probably already heard of. - The filters fill the role of playlists nicely with a little extra power behind them. - Occasionally has some issues with streaming an episode but that has happened maybe twice in the time since the major update. - You do have to pay for the app in multiple places if you want to use the phone / desktop / web apps, but it is reasonably priced for a well developed app. -
Excellent Podcast App for the Non-Power User
If you are like me and just want a cross platform podcast application to listen to your five or so podcasts on a weekly basis, then Pocket Casts is a great option. I understand that there are a number of complaints about the most recent update which speak to legitimate regressions in functionality for power users, however, this is a legitimately good podcast application that works for my particular needs which include Google Cast support, and the ability to operate it with my voice without having to unlock my phone (like while I am driving). That being said, I still face one issue where Google Cast support can get a bit wonky requiring me to force quit the app, reopen it and reconnect. If the team can squash that bug then this app is perfect for my needs. -
Great for podcasts - multiple devices useless
I’ve been using PocketCasts for a couple of years. I use it because I am comfortable with it and am able to manage my queue of 250 podcasts of which some are casual listening and some are daily. Here’s the rub and what makes me look around for something else now. You can spend lots of time creating rules for each podcast (auto queue it, prune to the last x episodes, etc) but guess what.... those rules you just customized for weeks on end, they only live on the device you set them up on. They do not sync to any other device. Using your iPad today? Forget it, you need to grab your phone where you customized everything... Makes no sense given lots of other things do sync, like your up next queue, or what episodes you starred, or you subscriptions. If you pay for the subscription so you can get the web version, yes you guessed it- nothing syncs to it, no rules can be created and the only thing you get is the what’s new view and what’s next. Why pay? Really like it still but unless they fix this I will move on. Free is good however...
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I’m sad that I have to switch to another app
I’ve been using that app for well over two years. Since then, it’s been my go to for podcasts because it has a great interface and is easy to use. However, I don’t know why but I’ve been having so many problems with it lately. The main one is that podcasts won’t load. I don’t always have space on my phone to download my podcasts since I take a lot of photos and video on a day to day basis, meaning I stream a lot of my content. For some reason, I always have problems with podcasts from this app recently. It’ll load a couple of seconds, then it will refuse to play anything for a while, then all of a sudden it’ll start working again. It’s not like I’m losing internet connection, as it will even happen on WiFi. Sometimes it’ll even do it with downloaded podcasts. Then I have even more problems with CarPlay. If I plug my phone in to use pocket casts, sometimes it’ll just completely freeze everything on my phone until I unplug and restart my phone. It’s only with this app. That all being said, I still enjoyed my time with this app and I loved its simplicity, which is why I’m sad to see it go now that I’m switching to another app that doesn’t give me these problems. I’ll come back eventually if these bugs get fixed. Till then, so long my friend. -
Syncing is still really bad if you listen on two devices.
There are many good things about PocketCast (Video Support, Playback Effects, background downloading, notifications, etc.). But there are three things that bother me. 1) If you listen on an iPad and and iPhone regularly your syncing will be messed up all the time. For instance, open iPad app and watch a video show. Then open on your phone later an audio show and stop. Perhaps that evening you open your iPad again to resume the video you were watching that morning. It will sync the iPad back to your iPhone the play position of your audio podcast from that morning, not where you left off on your iPhone later in the day. I’m constantly opening Pocket Casts on my phone to find that my listening position was reverted back 20-30 minutes earlier than I left off. 2) I think the playback screen has an unnecessary bar at the bottom with the tools. Remove that bar and just put the icons for playback effects and others without it. 3) The cover art for the podcast is not centered properly on the iPhone X, XS, and XS Max iPhone. That’s just poor design. Please Russell and Co. fix these problems. -
Probably the best podcast app for me but I have no idea why some podcasts cut out when using Chromecast to play to another device. One podcast literally just stops playing exactly 12 minutes after you start it. Check the app after that, open the Chromecast option menu and it says 'No Media Selected'. Not sure if it's the server the cast streams from, Chromecast or Pocket Casts that's broken. Infuriating though, other casts have no such problems. Very strange.
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Android Auto support was broken on Version 7.16 and is still broken on 7.17. AA Voice commands, especially the vital "Play up next in Pocket Casts" have been totally broken on AA for a while now and no voice commands work. I emailed Support and they replied asking me to update to 7.17. I did and replied that the voice commands still didn't work. Support stopped replying. Haven't heard back since and voice commands are still broken. Samsung S20 Ultra Android 11 Pocket Casts 7.17
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Disappointing search functions
Unfortunately you cannot put parentheses around a term and have it look for an exact match. That makes it frustratingly inefficient to find something you are looking for. As an example, I looked for “Bill Hader” in parentheses, and got everything from Bill Maher to Bill Nye the Science Guy. The search doesn’t look through specific episode titles or descriptions either. In the stock Apple app, you can search for an actor, and it will list all of the shows where he was a guest for an episode. In the stock Apple app, you can search for a specific incident or topic, and it will list all the shows where they featured that topic in an episode. The UI and the controls are pretty nice, but none of that matters if I can’t search for content I want to listen to. -
CarPlay support is buggy
The app on the phone is fine. But I primarily listen to podcasts in the car, using CarPlay. Ever since the last major update, the apps CarPlay support is barely functional. Three out of four times I open pocket casts on CarPlay, I get the spinning loading circle and it eventually says it can’t communicate with pocket casts. When it does load, the podcasts list doesn’t match what is on the phone. Podcasts will just randomly not show up on the list. So I have to grab my phone to load it out of the app. Even the “playing” icon in the upper right of the CarPlay screen shows that audio is playing, when no audio is playing. Tl;dr: if you want a podcast player for CarPlay, this might not be the one for you. At least until they fix the recent bugs. -
Carplay issue with archives
Like the app but one of the recent updates has crippled the app on Apple Carplay. Perhaps I'm missing a setting but only downloaded episodes appear in the Carplay interface now unlike previous versions that showed episodes that were and were not downloaded. So if you use the archiving feature to keep your downloads storage down but run out of downloads for a particular podcast, you're out of luck in Carplay. You have to wait until you can grab your phone to start streaming an episode which seems to defeat the purpose and safety benefits of Carplay, or not listen. This is the case even when Show Archives is enabled. Please fix, the car is where I and imagine others enjoy the majority of podcasts. -
Still no support for private feeds
The claim that Pocket Casts is "the world's most powerful podcast platform" is absurd, given that it doesn't have a feature as basic (and as easy to implement) as support for password-protected feeds. On the upside, several annoying problems, bugs and glitches have been fixed, in particular the one where every time you resumed a podcast, the first few milliseconds of the episode would play, as well where a downloaded episode wouldn't resume because it was perpetually "buffering", making a force quit necessary. Also, it's nice to be able to listen to a podcast episode without subscribing to it, which didn't used to be possible. It's a start... -
This used to be a great app
I have enjoyed this app for several years but now I see it is time to find a new app. Each update (much like my experience with Apple iTunes Player) takes away functionality that made the app an enjoyable experience. The filter function used to be meaningful, flexible and helpful. Now it is useless. I use this app in 2 instances: driving and walking the dog. In the Chevy, it is a struggle to get this app to play through the Bluetooth or USB cord (I would take either if it worked reliably but they constantly drop and has been getting progressively worse in the last year - I reboot the phone, tried different cords, etc etc). In the Ford it is slightly better with Sync but still problematic. When walking the dog, I will say that the iWatch app works (and has gotten better over time), I can easily pause and rewind when my neighbor starts talking to me. I gave it 3 stars because if you are new to this app, it might work well for you. If you have used this app for a while, it is disappointing to see how it has changed over time. -
Wanted to like this but it is lacking in a couple of key features
I like all the features of Pocket Casts but what caused me to delete it was having to go in and manually add episodes or podcasts to the Up Next playlist. Adding a continuous play option to the filters would probably put this at a five star app for me especially since it has the capability of syncing across all platforms (with a plus subscription, which I would have gladly done) although from my experience the syncing was food but had room for improvement. I will keep looking for updates that hopefully add better continuous play and maybe come back to Pocket Casts down the road
Filter Reviews
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Used to work great. Now the app consistently stops playing if my phone is locked and this isn't the app that is open. If I open the app it'll immediately start playing without me even pressing play. The sleep timer seems to be malfunctioning too in that it won't stop. It just plays my entire queue. I've woken up to podcasts still playing and/or episodes I haven't listened to archived.
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EDIT. I'm moving to another podcast app. Support will not answer my questions about this issue. Apparently they have my money now and don't care about any issues. I'm sick and tired of downloading podcasts over and over again just to have them automatically deleted...I would avoid this app for now. OLD REVIEW Even though auto archive is turned off, it keeps deleting and archiving episodes. What the heck. Otherwise great app I suppose, although I've never tried anything else.
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Bad update, unprofessional response
I was glad to find Pocket Casts at first. It was a decent cross-platform app, with a couple weird quirks, but the best option for me. I opted into the beta and wasn’t as fond of it, but decided to give it some time for me to adjust and explore. Some basic, useful features were lacking or implemented strangely and the UI change was a huge step back, considerably less intuitive. Unfortunately, they didn’t really improve on any of these problems for the release despite feedback from users. I know it’s impossible to give every user what they want. Plus, so many users are too entitled and demanding. That doesn’t warrant not listening to them at all, or responding flippantly and condescendingly to feedback. Many of the developer responses have been deleted because it “doesn’t represent who they are” (except ... yes it does, because that’s literally how they’re representing themselves). I’m not surprised to see the drop in their ratings, which they reset recently in hopes of erasing the negative ones, I guess? They already have the money of existing users, so maybe they don’t feel like it’s as important to respect them. But I know I will no longer be recommending Pocket Casts to anyone else. Fortunately, there are cross-platform alternatives I look forward to checking out instead, like Castbox. -
BELIEVE the negative reviews!
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than these developers. That may seem harsh, but it’s the truth. They love to take your money and give you nothing back for it. “You paid us money for the app when we promised no subscriptions or freemiums? Hah, thanks for the dough, sucker, we’re going free and not even giving you a trial of our now locked behind a paywall features!” Ethical developers have always grandfathered in purchasers of their apps when the go subscription, but these guys failed ethics in college. Just look at how many disgruntled customers they responded to, if you don’t believe me. I.E, NONE of them. Now, as for the app itself, it’s a miracle if it plays the full podcast. If it works on CarPlay, it’s another miracle! If the audio doesn’t constantly cut out, holy cow, call the Pope because this app is only four miracles away from sainthood! Maybe they’ve locked usability behind the paywall, as well. To summarize, don’t use this. Don’t even gaze in its direction. And especially don’t give these shady thieves a dollar of your money. You could spend it much better on a cheeseburger, thumb tacks, an empty cardboard box, or just by burning it and blowing the ashes in the wind. -
This app has so much going for it except one very fatal flaw. ARCHIVE deletes the episode! That's not at all what archive means. I want to hide played episodes, not delete them. I wish I'd known that. Many podcasts aren't available online anymore and I wouldn't have deleted them locally had I known. Please bring back a way to hide played without removing them because this app SHOULD be a five-star app!
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This app, with the rise of spotify podcasts is now obsolete. I find my most listened to podcast there and why not use it since I'm paying for it for music anyway. But the big issue is that Pocket Casts is annoying. I tried to kill the notification of a show I never finished but the only way to do that was to force close it. And then it came back. Annoying! App deleted. BYE!
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So much good but one fatal flaw
I like so much about this app, and if you subscribe to a small number of pods you might enjoy it. But I subscribe to a lot. And there is no way to group them- if you subscribe to 100 podcasts they are just all listed on one big page. Now, there are filters but they are for episodes. So you can say, give me all I played episodes, or all episodes longer than an hour, and it mixes them all into a playlist. But if you just want to group your news shows, your fiction stories, your true crime, etc- no way to do that. I quit using this app after the fastest way for me to find the show I was looking for became too try and subscribe to it again and that would jump me to the page to play the next episode. And this isn’t a flaw- they want people to use filters and not folders. I don’t know why, and this is a long-standing complaint. I’ll occasionally check back to see if anything changed, but until then it’s just become unusable for me. -
Their communication with customers is vitriolic at best--from updates, to outreach, to QA. Atrocious would be a complement. The app has gone from great, to garbage (the past two years). Now it crashes about 8x a day, on a new flagship device. Stay away, at every tier.
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Features Are Great, But Won’t Stop Crashing
I got this app because I wanted the automatic downloading and queuing features, and I’ve found those incredibly valuable. I can have my favorite podcasts automatically play next as soon as episodes are available and maintain a queue more easily than I can in the Apple Podcasts app. Also, the more flexible playback rates and Trim Silence features are fantastic. I would give this app 5 stars if it didn’t randomly crash all the time. It was whenever the most recent significant aesthetic update happened (the old version worked well), but now it will crash while I’m listening to a podcast and have my phone in my pocket or connected to my car. I literally do nothing to provoke it. The interface also freezes sometimes and forces me to quit it and restart, which is frustrating since the mechanics of playing back from an RSS feed don’t seem to be the most complicated part of this app. -
Doesn't do playlists - I like to save episodes I might not want to listen to immediately to different playlists, like for driving or for focusing, etc. This player doesn't do that anymore, which seems like an extremely basic requirement of a podcast player.
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Great app but....
I have been using this app for awhile even subscribed to the plus version. Recently I have noticed that during playback there are times you will have a repeat or rewind during the episode. I thought after a few updates it would be corrected but it hasn’t changed. -
I used to love this app
Since the latest 2 (been using it for more time than i can imagine) updates it stops playing every time and has to open the app, force close it, and play the podcast again. If this get solved will come back to rate 5 stars! -
BELIEVE the negative reviews!
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than these developers. That may seem harsh, but it’s the truth. They love to take your money and give you nothing back for it. “You paid us money for the app when we promised no subscriptions or freemiums? Hah, thanks for the dough, sucker, we’re going free and not even giving you a trial of our now locked behind a paywall features!” Ethical developers have always grandfathered in purchasers of their apps when the go subscription, but these guys failed ethics in college. Just look at how many disgruntled customers they responded to, if you don’t believe me. I.E, NONE of them. Now, as for the app itself, it’s a miracle if it plays the full podcast. If it works on CarPlay, it’s another miracle! If the audio doesn’t constantly cut out, holy cow, call the Pope because this app is only four miracles away from sainthood! Maybe they’ve locked usability behind the paywall, as well. To summarize, don’t use this. Don’t even gaze in its direction. And especially don’t give these shady thieves a dollar of your money. You could spend it much better on a cheeseburger, thumb tacks, an empty cardboard box, or just by burning it and blowing the ashes in the wind. -
Glitchy and unable to use
I really enjoyed using this app until recently. Now frequently, I’ll start a podcast and the sound is messed up. It sounds like staticky chipmunks talking. To the point where you can’t understand the words. I’ve deleted and reinstalled to no avail. It’ll work fine for a couple of hours and then becomes unusable. Too bad really as I’ve always enjoyed it before now. -
Podcast failed to download
Please check your internet connection. -
Downloading not functioning correctly
Since the most recent update downloading an episode of any podcast from any provider hasn’t functioned over wifi. Always get a generic error. Turning off wifi and downloading on cellular works. Same thing happens when streaming. Won’t work on wifi but will on cellular. Another annoying thing is when looking at the help pages there isn’t a way to go back. So you have to close and start from the beginning. -
Ruined
Used to be great, now it’s too slow and crashes all the time. -
I’m a sad podcast listener
I love this app and how it works however recently it started having errors when I try to stream podcasts. I moved away from the Apple app because it forced me to download all the podcasts and now this one is only working when you download them. What’s crazy is that I click to stream them and they error out and say no internet connection but then I can click the download button and the episode immediately downloads. I guess it’s time to start looking for the next app. -
Doesn’t work on mobile data
A few weeks back, the app refused to work while on mobile data. I have attempted to troubleshoot with their support, but they didn’t really try too hard. They gave up, so I’m moving on. -
Moving to PlayerFM
They have refused to update their Chromecast support for over a year now, claiming that it's too complicated to actually make it work right (something that no other app seems to have an issue with). Maybe if they spent their time actually working on their app instead of composing cringey update notes, they'd have more to show for themselves. I'm leaving for PlayerFM. At the very least, I won't have to suffer through cringey update notes.
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Used to work great. Now the app consistently stops playing if my phone is locked and this isn't the app that is open. If I open the app it'll immediately start playing without me even pressing play. The sleep timer seems to be malfunctioning too in that it won't stop. It just plays my entire queue. I've woken up to podcasts still playing and/or episodes I haven't listened to archived.
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Bad update, unprofessional response
I was glad to find Pocket Casts at first. It was a decent cross-platform app, with a couple weird quirks, but the best option for me. I opted into the beta and wasn’t as fond of it, but decided to give it some time for me to adjust and explore. Some basic, useful features were lacking or implemented strangely and the UI change was a huge step back, considerably less intuitive. Unfortunately, they didn’t really improve on any of these problems for the release despite feedback from users. I know it’s impossible to give every user what they want. Plus, so many users are too entitled and demanding. That doesn’t warrant not listening to them at all, or responding flippantly and condescendingly to feedback. Many of the developer responses have been deleted because it “doesn’t represent who they are” (except ... yes it does, because that’s literally how they’re representing themselves). I’m not surprised to see the drop in their ratings, which they reset recently in hopes of erasing the negative ones, I guess? They already have the money of existing users, so maybe they don’t feel like it’s as important to respect them. But I know I will no longer be recommending Pocket Casts to anyone else. Fortunately, there are cross-platform alternatives I look forward to checking out instead, like Castbox. -
This app, with the rise of spotify podcasts is now obsolete. I find my most listened to podcast there and why not use it since I'm paying for it for music anyway. But the big issue is that Pocket Casts is annoying. I tried to kill the notification of a show I never finished but the only way to do that was to force close it. And then it came back. Annoying! App deleted. BYE!
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So much good but one fatal flaw
I like so much about this app, and if you subscribe to a small number of pods you might enjoy it. But I subscribe to a lot. And there is no way to group them- if you subscribe to 100 podcasts they are just all listed on one big page. Now, there are filters but they are for episodes. So you can say, give me all I played episodes, or all episodes longer than an hour, and it mixes them all into a playlist. But if you just want to group your news shows, your fiction stories, your true crime, etc- no way to do that. I quit using this app after the fastest way for me to find the show I was looking for became too try and subscribe to it again and that would jump me to the page to play the next episode. And this isn’t a flaw- they want people to use filters and not folders. I don’t know why, and this is a long-standing complaint. I’ll occasionally check back to see if anything changed, but until then it’s just become unusable for me. -
Features Are Great, But Won’t Stop Crashing
I got this app because I wanted the automatic downloading and queuing features, and I’ve found those incredibly valuable. I can have my favorite podcasts automatically play next as soon as episodes are available and maintain a queue more easily than I can in the Apple Podcasts app. Also, the more flexible playback rates and Trim Silence features are fantastic. I would give this app 5 stars if it didn’t randomly crash all the time. It was whenever the most recent significant aesthetic update happened (the old version worked well), but now it will crash while I’m listening to a podcast and have my phone in my pocket or connected to my car. I literally do nothing to provoke it. The interface also freezes sometimes and forces me to quit it and restart, which is frustrating since the mechanics of playing back from an RSS feed don’t seem to be the most complicated part of this app. -
Good app, but I paid for this app way back in the day, and now it's trying to get me to pay a monthly for the premium version. What did I pay for? GF myself, that's what, I guess.
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Love the app except that my podcasts randomly stop or shut off as I'm listening and I have to reopen the app to hit play. It's not even in the status bar at the top because it's like the app force closed.
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Used to be good
I really liked this app, as it did everything i needed for the 10-12 programs I liked. The recent upgrade improved the UI quite a bit. I liked that it automatically downloaded my favorites and put them in the queue. But then it started deleting shows from the queue, so I would expect to hear a show and it would be gone, and I’d have to find it and stick it back in. That was annoying enough but I could deal with it. But the final straw was that it would end a cast about 3 minutes before the cast actually ended, and then I’d have to dig around in the archive (because now the podcast was deleted from my queue and archived) and then stream the last few minutes. After doing this about half a dozen times I decided it was simply too much effort and have found another app. It really was a shame but the problems were too frustrating to deal with. -
Some fixes to the awful Nov 2018 updates but bugs continue
Pocket Casts really messed up a great app with their total revision back in Nov ‘18. Since then it’s become a little easier to group, sort, and (sort of) create playlists. But still a step down from the old version, where those functions were easy and intuitive. Recent update has introduced new bugs. The most irritating of which is the random tendency to clip the last 2-3 minutes of a podcast. At first I thought this was due to editing errors by the podcast producers, but today, after it happened to two casts, I went back and relistened, scrubbing to near the end, and heard the last few minutes that Pocket Cast had dropped. This is a bug in the app. Blah. Fix this, please. Better yet, give users the option of returning to the old pre-Nov 2018 version of the app. You could call it “Back Pocket Casts”. -
Unfortunate newer version
I used to love this app but one of the more recent updates completely changed the interface of the app. The most frustrating for me is swiping left now archives the episode instead of delete, not even sure how to delete episodes anymore. Second most annoying change is instead of the download button being next to the episode title I have to open the show notes, then download from there. There are more issues with the new interface but those are the two big ones for me. It feels like the user experience was not even considered with the new version. Another issue is when I'm using Pocket Casts and Google maps simultaneously the podcast will rewind 10-15 seconds when Google maps pauses the podcast to give directions. I've stopped using Pocket Casts and am currently looking for a new app to use.
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EDIT. I'm moving to another podcast app. Support will not answer my questions about this issue. Apparently they have my money now and don't care about any issues. I'm sick and tired of downloading podcasts over and over again just to have them automatically deleted...I would avoid this app for now. OLD REVIEW Even though auto archive is turned off, it keeps deleting and archiving episodes. What the heck. Otherwise great app I suppose, although I've never tried anything else.
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BELIEVE the negative reviews!
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than these developers. That may seem harsh, but it’s the truth. They love to take your money and give you nothing back for it. “You paid us money for the app when we promised no subscriptions or freemiums? Hah, thanks for the dough, sucker, we’re going free and not even giving you a trial of our now locked behind a paywall features!” Ethical developers have always grandfathered in purchasers of their apps when the go subscription, but these guys failed ethics in college. Just look at how many disgruntled customers they responded to, if you don’t believe me. I.E, NONE of them. Now, as for the app itself, it’s a miracle if it plays the full podcast. If it works on CarPlay, it’s another miracle! If the audio doesn’t constantly cut out, holy cow, call the Pope because this app is only four miracles away from sainthood! Maybe they’ve locked usability behind the paywall, as well. To summarize, don’t use this. Don’t even gaze in its direction. And especially don’t give these shady thieves a dollar of your money. You could spend it much better on a cheeseburger, thumb tacks, an empty cardboard box, or just by burning it and blowing the ashes in the wind. -
This app has so much going for it except one very fatal flaw. ARCHIVE deletes the episode! That's not at all what archive means. I want to hide played episodes, not delete them. I wish I'd known that. Many podcasts aren't available online anymore and I wouldn't have deleted them locally had I known. Please bring back a way to hide played without removing them because this app SHOULD be a five-star app!
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Their communication with customers is vitriolic at best--from updates, to outreach, to QA. Atrocious would be a complement. The app has gone from great, to garbage (the past two years). Now it crashes about 8x a day, on a new flagship device. Stay away, at every tier.
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Doesn't do playlists - I like to save episodes I might not want to listen to immediately to different playlists, like for driving or for focusing, etc. This player doesn't do that anymore, which seems like an extremely basic requirement of a podcast player.
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AVOID! Bought app before subscription, +30GB DATA ABUSE!
30GB of data... Not the first time it has happened, and it’s absolutely ridiculous. Especially since I originally paid for the app before they decided to change to a subscription service, and receive none of the features I paid for. I have turned off every “Download” or “files” feature, so it is not user error. I uncheck the “In progress” and “played” options in storage and data usage as well, only to see them turned back on immediately after exiting. If this is a bug it is a hell of an costly one on my end. After getting ripped off after buying the app already on multiple devices that was then switched to a subscription service, it’s nice to add the 30+GB of monthly data on top of that. I just hope that the same hasn’t happened to the people I recommended this app too not long ago. As for now, just another company totally fine with ripping paying customers off with a blatant money grab! DO NOT DOWNLOAD! -
Cross platform syncing is what brought me to the app . But after recent updates some podcasts randomly stop playing. Downgrading to one star because it is now happening on multiple different podcasts on different devices.
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Bad Update Took Away Favourite Feature!
This app was my favourite cross-platform for the last few years and I rated it highly due to the control and customisation of podcast management. Then they removed my favourite feature: ‘Auto Cleanup’ in the recent v7 update. I travel a lot and can be without internet on planes, underground and in dead spot areas, and the Auto Cleanup settings allowed me to keep only the newest / relevant 1 to 5 episodes of my news, entertainment and information podcasts. Bring back pre-v7 ASAP, totally wrong decision to overhaul it by far for the worse. So I’ve left this app behind, and they even ‘reset’ their ratings, it went from the top rated podcast app to worst with one update to v7, hundreds of 1 star reviews have been removed, don’t waste your money! UPDATE: so now it’s ‘gone free’ to subscription payment mode - the money I did pay for it is now worthless, just like this app. Successfully destroyed the app from version 6 to now. Goodbye! -
Why am I surprised they charge for Apple Watch support?
The shift from great podcast player to nickel and diming developers has been extremely irritating over the last year. They released a badly thought out redesign. They updated it a bit but also implemented a subscription feature that no one asked for and provided almost no value whatsoever. And now recently to top it all off, they finally introduced syncing support with Apple Watch but it’s behind their premium subscription. I am all for supporting developers who work hard and make great apps, but I get angry every time I open the app and hit a paywall screen for some of the most basic iOS functionality. I highly recommend (and will be going myself) to Overcast. They figured out the correct way to charge for optional ads for ongoing support and include watch functionality for free. Don’t waste your time with PocketCast. -
Oy... I wished this worked the way I wanted it to.
When I decided to purchase and download this app, I was optimistic that it was going to be way better than Apple’s Podcast app. I was compelled by the emphasis on syncing between devices with an account and downloading. Use of it with CarPlay and Apple Watch along side the app on my phone was another key indication that I’d like this app. However, I often workout or do things without intentional access to my phone and I’d like to listen to Pocket Casts via my Watch and AirPods without access to a data network, cellular or WiFi. I’ve downloaded podcasts and looked for settings in iOS (and web version) that would support being able to do what I have outlined above. However, I am unable to get my watch with pocket casts on it to work independently of a network or being alongside my phone. This is a dealbreaker and now I find this app to be useless.
- Smart design interface changes colors to complement beautiful podcast artwork
- Go mobile or listen at home! Full compatibility with Android Wear and Chromecast
- “Pocket Casts is the best podcast app for Android.” - AndroidCentral
Reviewed by Kaylin on March 7, 2018
Release Notes
Varies with device
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