Podcast Player - Video & RSS

Always torn between rating accurate (4 out of 5) and pulling down that score, or giving a perfect 5 out of 5 for a non-perfect app that does not deserve to have the rating pulled down. The organization system of the settings of this app is far more confusing than it needs to be. Customizing the categories (or not) is weird in that some settings are in the main menu and some are buried under per category settings which may or may not be turned off. Also some of the wording on the settings is left ambiguous and could use some further info or descriptions to explain what it is for. It is nice having a straightforward RSS based podcast app that supports video, those have become increasingly rare. The search function for finding new podcasts could use a LOT of work, as it generally seems to require exact phrases and words that appear out of order cannot be found (and other similar strange programming related bugs). All in all one of the best apps that does what it does, generally only falling short to audio-only podcast apps.

I have been using RSS Radio to listen to podcasts ever since Apple’s native podcast app quit making sense. This app does almost everything I want and is the best of all I have tried. Pros: Very easy to organize my podcasts. You can assign 2 categories to each podcast which then creates playlists by category in addition to the default playlist. You can modify the options for default settings when you subscribe to a podcast ( i.e., download latest 1, 2 or all unlistened episodes, add to front or end of the play lid, start after xx seconds). You can then set these uniquely for each podcast. This app has the most options for this than other apps I have tried. What I wish the app would do: Create my own playlist for individual podcast episodes. This would come in handy when I am planning for a long road trip. Managing this through “favorites” almost works, but is not easy to work with. I haven’t been able to figure out how to modify the order of podcasts in any playlist other than default. But I haven’t found another app that could do this either. Overall, I am very happy with the app.

If you listen to a lot of shows, this is your player. Period. None of the social duff and show promo previews the native app is cluttering every screen with now. Just your shows and their episodes with full control over every aspect of each. From serialized shows you want to plow through starting at episode 1, to daily news where you will never dig back through archives, to shows you've just discovered with 200 back episodes you want to selectively pick through, this app lets you tweak ALL the settings for each show to keep your playlist fresh and filled with your must-listens. Auto-queue places your must-listens in the queue automatically and you even get to dictate where in the queue they get added. Manual reordering of not only each category, but of the shows you place in the categories is a godsend. Easy to add single episodes from shows you don't want to subscribe to. Super efficient listening with playback speeds, silence skipping, customizable forward and backward skip amounts, and customizable show start and finish skips. Digging through the settings might seem daunting, but honestly every item is a delight as you discover the ability to do things you didn't even know you wanted to do. And the default settings would work great anyway. Happily upgraded not to gain features or remove ads, but because this amount of attention to detail deserves support.