Best podcast app
WE WANDER THE WORLD OF INTERNET AUDIO TO TRACK DOWN THE BEST PODCASTING APPS.
Pocket Casts REEL IN THE BEST PODCASTS. Android: $3.99, iOS: $5.99, WP: $4.29, Web: $9 | www.shiftjelly.com
THIS HOMEGROWN PODCAST heavyweight has been around as long as we can remember, but as the developer has noted on its website, they’ve priced it at a point that means they can provide ongoing support for it, so the app sees constant updates and is in no way dated.
One of the first things you’ll do with a new podcast app is discover some ‘casts, so the New Stations browser is an important first impression. The Discovery section of Pocket Casts has a number of methods for finding new podcasts with a collection of handpicked Featured favourites, a Trending list, an overall popularity segment, a category breakdown, a parent Network option and a slightly unusual nearby option that’ll let you see what other Pocket Casters in the area listen to. Of course, in addition to these, you can just search for what you’re after in the 30,000 original podcasts using title, host or feed keywords.
Once you’ve added the selection of stations you think you’ll be interested in, it’ll organise them by how recently you played them and naturally prioritise your most listened to stations. Alternatively, you can sort by name, release date or in a drag-and-drop order of your choice, which, if you happen to be proud enough of your arrangement, you can share it with the world through a dedicated share button.
Pocket Casts offers a number of features and settings that make it easy to keep track of your multitude of subscriptions. There’s an easy-to-access new releases segment that’ll collect all the recent downloads, ordering them by the date of their release. Additionally, you can tweak the auto download settings to only operate in Wi-Fi zones or even when your phone is charging, enable notifications for any new downloads and set up an automated sync and regulated episode checker across all your devices.
Multi-hour audio subscriptions can be reasonably large files and, once you’ve got your fingers in a few podcast pies, it’s surprising how quickly your phone’s storage space will be used up. If you happen to use Pocket Casts on an Android that has a microSD card, then you can opt to store podcasts there rather than use internal memory. Moreso if you are particularly tight on space, you can set Pocket Casts to auto delete any played podcasts and limit the number of downloaded files to two to prevent over-occupying your phone’s storage.
If you already have a podcast app and need a little extra cajoling in order to make the switch, Pocket Casts offers import tools to help you populate your new app with all your favourite subscriptions and playback history so you don’t have to start from scratch.
If you’re a podcast power user looking to tailor your library even further, Pocket Casts will allow you to make your own smart folders that’ll only include episodes or subscriptions that fit the play state, episode type and release date of your choosing.
Pocket Casts offers an exceptionally large range of customisations and handy settings but, at the same time, manages to keep its interface simple enough to be a straightforward, nicely laid out podcast playback app.
On the whole, we can’t think of anything else we’d need out of an app that looks after your podcasts and, though there are a couple of apps that aren’t too far behind, they still have a bit of catching up to do before being on par with this longstanding champ.
POCKET CAST OFFERS IMPORT TOOLS TO HELP YOU POPULATE YOUR NEW APP WITH ALL YOUR FAVOURITE SUBSCRIPTIONS AND PLAYBACK HISTORY SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO START FROM SCRATCH.