Pocket Casts has to be both one of the best and one of the most used podcast players around, even Google’s Podcasts app can’t hold a candle to its design, features and usability.
Not being one to rest on their laurels ShiftyJelly, the Australian team behind Pocket Casts has hard been at work with the next generation of Pocket Casts version 7.0.
Today, after an exclusive closed beta and then open beta process, the final update is now released to the Google Play Store for everyone. Having been using the new version for a few months, I can attest that this is no small update. There are many minor changes to the app, both visible and under the hood.
Under the hood there’s a new sync system to track your current and up next podcasts progress and keep it in sync, undoubtedly this was needed to enable the recent Alexa integration. It’s a shame Google won’t open up the APIs needed for 3rd party media players to resume audio on a Google Assistant device like a Smart Display, it almost feels anti-competitive on Google’s behalf.
More in your face are enhancements like archiving, where you can swipe a podcast away out of your feed without actually marking it as played. This system allows you to take a granular control over your history and ‘up next’ feed in a way that will make it easier to choose what to listen to next, while never losing track of episodes you didn’t get around to listen to.
Another enhancement is the ability to choose to add a new podcast to the beginning or the end of your up next feed. At first, I found this new feature a little annoying, but now I don’t know how I ever lived without it. There are podcasts I immediately bring to the top of my list, and others an just wait near the bottom.
These changes are only the tip of the iceberg, check out Shifty’s announcement post here, and grab the newest version of PocketCasts from the Play Store today:
My father got the iOS update a few months back and I was unable to help him add episodes to up next. Couldn’t work it out. Used to be easy as.
I’ve just ticked off auto update of the app and will wait as few months denying updates. The last UI update (years ago) broke a bunch of core features but most were added back slowly over the next year or so, so just hang onto version 6 as long as the app keeps working.
I’m hating the update, especially the removal of custom episodes. Might be time for a new podcast app…
I switched over to Podcast Republic, their new interface truncates descriptions and it’s pointless to tap multiple times in and out. They expect us to start listening without reading descriptions. 🤦🏽♂
Minimal interface has gone too far.
Was this update just delayed on Android? I converted to Pocket Cast on iOS about 3 months ago and all these features were already there.
Pocketcasts is probably the app I use the most but thank goodness for Titanium Backup. Its back to 6.4.15 for me & I have detatched Pocket Casts from the marketplace for now. The new version is WAY toooooo sloooow. I’m a heavy user with over 200 subscriptions & it also really sucks that the name of the subscription is removed from filter view. I have faith that Russel & his guys will work it out eventually. I’ll check back in again after a few months….
You should provide feedback to the team, if your volume of podcasts is an edge case they may not have had a lot of telemetry on use cases like yours
This update is a mess…the ui is far less intuitive, I still can’t find a whole bunch of settings despite searching every possible menu option, and my wife is about to give up and switch to google podcasts. They seriously screwed up here in terms of the existing loyal user base…change is always hard, but they’ve made a huge screwup here hence all the negative reviews we’re now seeing
Out of interest, what settings can’t you find? I do remember there was a learning curve, but I no longer remember the details, it passed for me
storage settings, themes, playback settings etc
Try profile then the settings cog in the top right. But if you couldn’t find it that does support your point.
If there’s a learning curve then they’ve already gone down the wrong path. I’m an IT developer so if I’m frustrated then they’re in trouble…
Top reviews on the store are basically opposite of your review!
I’ve been using it for months, it took a little getting used to as I said. People hate change