Podcast App

I switched to this app from the Apple app years ago and have never regretted it. it’s a nice, light, air design, but more than that it is super user-friendly and intuitive. I love that I can have my favorite podcasts all in one place and know who’s dropped a new one. In another view, I can see the episodes in order of release dare on all my favorites in one list, no tapping around the app to collect them one by one! The other thing I really love is that I can save episodes to listen later (just once) in a list and it auto clears them once I’ve listened to them. I can also create a playlist to listen to again and again. These guys are killing it! If there’s a development opportunity, I would say it’s around the ability to organize podcasts within the permanent playlist, though that might be my user error. I would love to be able to reset the podcast easily – I have a Yoga playlist and I would love to have a single button “start from the beginning “option.

I think most people can agree that although staying off your phone while driving should be done 100% of the time, there will be the once in a while where you have to tap a slip or pause button while on the road. If you're driving and you need to hit one button in the app, you expect it to be a 2 second procedure, yet it is not, because as soon as you interact with the app after not doing so for more than 5-10 minutes, you will be harassed with 10 second ads that are purposely hard to close out of, and purposely put in places that are the most distracting (going to your listen later will prompt it, as well as going to your currently playing podcast, aka the 2 most used functions while listening). I then have to pullover to do what originally should have been, again, a 2 second procedure at most. Many people who are more impulsive will not pull over, and instead will probably battle with the ads with their hand still on the steering wheel, and these developers know this. They know they are creating an absolute road hazard with where they place these ads and what they look like and it's extremely disheartening to see no regard for safety or their users to this degree. You don't deserve to have an app this functional/useful to so many people, you are not responsible with the power.

I have used the heck out of this app and it is mostly awesome. It just has a weird quirk where podcasts don’t automatically play the next episode. It used to. I thought maybe they’d changed that in an update, but I just went back and caught up on another podcast with 4 new eps since the last time I’d listened, and those DID start right off—when one episode ended, the next one would start playing after only a second or two. Most of the time, when one episode ends, it moves to the next episode and just stops. I have to hit play for it to start loading the ep, wait a few secs for it to stop loading and say “error,” turn my wifi off and back on again, go back to the app, hit “play” again, and usually do that a few more times while I wait 5-10 min for it to download the entire episode. Then I have to go to the podcast’s page, scroll to find the last ep I’d listened to, hit play on THAT, then go to the one I just loaded and hit play on that. Then it will play. I know my connection speed is slow, but it does this when I’m connected in other locations with better speeds. I was just resigned to this weird buggy thing until I just checked up on that other podcast and it actually started playing the next ep right away without nannying and cajoling, and before it had downloaded the whole thing. Is that just happening to me?