Reading this made me grin. Pocket Casts is one of the only applications that's survived me bouncing between iOS and Android and back again over the last who-knows-how-many years and I paid for their web player a long time ago, too. I've tried other players and none of them stick; the differences in affordances in something like Castro or Overcast send me back to Pocket Casts every time.
They seem to have had a rough time of it over the last few years, and seeing them end up at Automattic ("land of the misfit web toys") was nice. This is a cherry on top.
Best part of PocketCast is the stats. It can tell me that since 2016 I've listened to 135 days worth of podcasts and apparently I've "saved" 46 days by increasing the playback speed and 3 days from trimming silence. (I also have 350 hours in my "up next" queue ...)
I like Pocket Casts and I’m not knocking the fact that they have them or that other people like them, but stats like these make me feel existential dread.
That's so interesting, I never considered it but think I understand how you feel.
I've always wanted more stats like this. I expected/hoped Google Play Music (and now the inferior YouTube Music) would provide amazing overviews of what you listen to. I wish I had stats on the music I listened to in WinAmp in the 90s and a way to see the change in my musical tastes (and the consistent threads through the years). I bet I could track relationships very easily by the playlists I listened to.
I used last.fm back in the early 00’s. I don’t think it logged playlists, but it did log every song you listened to. It kind of faded away when streaming services took over which he no or variable support for last.fm.
yea... reminds me of seeing the number of hours a friend had put into EverQuest. I'm sure I'd be appalled at many of my own stats for my own activities
Wow, I've been using PocketCasts for a couple of years and I didn't even notice this feature before. Nice to learn that I've hit the "advance 30 seconds" button enough times to have missed out on over five hours of ads. What a fantastic non-use of time.
PocketCasts is a superb app but I saw AntennaPod on f-droid, so I thought to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised, the interface is very nice and syncs with gpodder.net
I've been using AntennaPod for years, my question is, is there any reason to switch to Pocket Casts? Aside from the sync-feature which seems nice. Everything else in the feature-list seems available in AntennaPod as well.
I don’t know if AntennaPod has it, but with syncing you also get a desktop (macOS/Windows/web) app. I use this to I listen while work, and switch to my phone at other times.
These same stats are also present in Podcast Addict[1]! As an aside: my own listening stats show that since 2017 I've listened to 149 days worth of podcasts.
In Overcast I have “Smart Speed has saved you and extra 252 hours beyond speed adjustments alone,” which is gnarly. But I don’t see any total listening stats bummer.
Is it based off of a database? Even fairly small YouTube channels seem to work with sponsor block as soon as the videos are uploaded. I always assumed YouTube requires creators to mark which sections are sponsored, and sponsor block has some way of looking that up.
Now you are making me feel like a listen to too many podcasts. I have 306 days since 2015. They are just so convenient to slot in. I listen during household chores, walks, and drives.
After being a user for many many years, I just recently tested out to Snipd [1] and have not looked back since. Pocket Cast were great but I don't see them innovating. With Snipd there is almost always a full text transcript available including a surprisingly accurate AI generated Table of Contents to cue through. Then I can easily save a transcribed clip of some section I am listening to for export to a TfT program like obsidian. Not sure how I ever lived without these features now I am used to them lol.
I think it's pretty close to perfect at this point and is a million times better that the interface they had when I started using it nearly 10 years ago.
Exactly! What features do we really need? Many “feature” suggestions I come across are people trying to make podcasts something they’re not so that they suit the person writing.
As someone who's never taken notes while listening to podcasts, I'm curious what your use cases are. Do you listen as part of your research for a project?
Mostly I listen to podcasts but there's a few I listen to for learning, specifically a podcast discussing recent developments in law. I might try listening to these podcasts in Snipd (or with Airr) to try out how easy it is to clip relevant chunks, while using Pocket Casts for the vast stuff I listen to for fun/entertainment.
I think most people listen to podcasts for fun and entertainment so it's unlikely they'll want to clip, get transcripts etc. But the small number of podcasts doing deep dives on scholarly, technical or professional matters? It's potentially quite useful to be able to get transcripts/excerpts with highlights and audio clips to add to personal notes for future reference.
Seems like snipd is only a mobile app, the big feature that keeps me on PocketCast is the fact that I can seamlessly transition from listening on the Browser in my office, to the Mobile app in my car without loosing my place on any podcast.
This is exactly why I started using Pocketcasts to begin with. I was looking for something with a desktop app. I use Pocketcasts on my phone, my computer and my Alexa and it’s all kept in sync.
wow, to each their own... I just installed spind based on this but it wanted me to pick categories so it could spam me with suggestions. There's no skipping it so I uninstalled. I have zero desire for a podcast app to suggest podcasts to me period. I get plenty of recommendations from the podcasters I listen to. I don't need more even more ads in my life.
Who is making “Discover Weekly” for podcast episodes?
I want personalized episode recommendations based on past listening behavior; I don't have time to dig through 30 podcast feeds to find an episode that interests me, which is why I usually only listen to specific episodes that friends recommend.
I bet recommendations across all podcasts (not just ones I know of) that match my interests to others with the same listening behavior would massively increase the amount of time I spend listening to podcasts.
Well, Spotify does some of that as far as I know. But I'd never switch to playing my podcasts there just out of principle (even though I pay the subscription too) because I don't like how they are trying to build a walled garden for podcasts and kill RSS as a thing.
Is ad-segment or sponsor-segment free podcasts a thing?
I too pay for Spotify and I tried to get into some podcasts, starting with Darknet Diaries, but the ad and sponsor segments are just too jarring. I guess I'm not paying enough in my Spotify subscription to get it without that stuff, so who/what/where do I pay to get some podcasts I want to listen to without it?
>so who/what/where do I pay to get some podcasts I want to listen to without it?
Podcasts are still, and I hope stay that way what the web should be
Most podcasts offer some kind of Paid / Subscription that is Ad Free, but you have a subscribe to them Individually, not through a platform like Spotify, then you need a Add like Pocket Casts where you can add the Subscriber Feed instead of the public feed.
I do not want Podcasts to become an other Platform Pay Walled thing that Spotify, Apple, and other want to make it, Keep Podcasts Independent and Platform Agnostic
Yes, but that sort of thing isn't included as part of a normal Spotify subscription. It looks like Spotify has support for podcasts subscriptions, but it's all on a one off basis as far as I can tell.
Out of the podcasts I listen to, I'm not sure a single one uses Spotify for subscriptions. Commonly it seems to be Patreon.
With all of that being said, many quality podcasts have jarring ad segments on purpose. Partly it serves as an ad for the ad-free feed but they also serve as a way to inform the listener that the following words aren't the podcasters' own and they were paid for an endorsement.
I think most podcasts post the exact same episodes to all popular platforms. Some may have an ad-free version on Patreon.
With Spotify, it's sort of similar to when the paid YouTube (Red/Premium) became a thing. Yea, you'd get rid of the Google-picked ads, but the in-video sponsored ads added by the video creator would still obviously remain.
Apple Podcasts “Listen now” tab has a dedicated section entitled “More to Discover” that is based on listening history. It includes around 20 - 30 recommended episodes, mostly from podcasts you’re not following. It seems to update daily.
The recommendation algorithm seems to work well, I’ve discovered a few of my favourite podcasts via the feature.
I really like Pocket Casts. I have basically used it every day since 2014.i don't really like that I bought it years ago, then they switched to a subscription model and I lost access to the one feature I cared about, which was syncing to their webapp. Always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and it really made me not want to support any more young companies.
I didn't get grandfathered in. I never saw whatever notification or email they sent out. I only saw last year that that was what happened, and by then I was obviously too late. Obviously, having paid for an online product and having it stolen from me is something I will never forget.
But each added user should not only cover the marginal cost but alt least the average cost. If we disregard that there can be several tiers of users and price models, it might stand to reason that each user at the least on average have to bring in as much money as they cost the service to serve. Many customers brought this up when Maciej Cegłowski had a fixed price model for perpetual Pinboard, he just bushed this off but has since come begging oldtimers for more money. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s tiresome to have the same journey with every service you want to depend on. This is a trait of the VC world of “we figure out profitability after we have all the customers”.
Respectfully disagree. An obligation to maintain a service in perpetuity for no revenue becomes a huge unfunded liability.
What if the app falls out of favor and new marginal revenue can’t cover fixed costs?
What if the business wants to innovate in a way that dramatically changes its cost structure (maybe introduce a feature that requires a usage based license)? Sure you can gate older users but how long do you have to maintain a separate set of features for them?
Obviously it’s the apps responsibility to make a fair deal with users and stick to terms offered. Sure some companies can make a model that amortizes an upfront payment effectively over decades. In reality though, all that really matters to a company is new cash that pays expenses. If you’re not contributing to that at some point you are no longer the customer.
If I remember there wasn't anything that needed to be done on our end, if your account qualified it was just done. Is it possible you have more than one account?
Looks like the people who are grandfathered in are people who paid for web access. If you purchased the Android or iOS app (like me), you are not grandfathered in and do not get a free plus account.
Huh, first time I ever saw that. Makes sense, I paid for the Android app not the web app. Still, wish I would have known this earlier. I may not like it, but better than being ghosted.
That said, I distributed remember themes and icons being a thing in the paid app which isn't available under the new model unless you subscribe.
Exactly... I've been using Pocket Casts since forever.
I bought the full featured version and was soo happy... Until they killed it off. Now I'm on an iPhone and Apple Watch and it's ridiculous to pay to subscribe just to be able to control it from my watch. Feels ridiculous.
If they brought back even an expensive, $80 one-time purchase fee I'd be more than happy to support.
I mean, that's all fine and well. Just don't sell products then take them away after because you can. Imagine buying physical goods and having the business owner come to your house and take it away because it was costing them too much. Insanity.
So should they be obligated to keep supporting their servers forever?
The better analogy would be like me expecting NordicTrack to service my exercise equipment for free forever. They aren’t going to take my physical equipment away. But they also aren’t going to keep sending me replacement parts and service techs out anytime I call them unless I keep paying the annual warranty.
And before anyone replies that it must be shoddy equipment to keep needing repairs, heavily used exercise equipment constantly has moving parts that wear down.
I think you're missing my point. I don't mind that they switched to a subscription service, I fucking hate being lied to. Given that they eventually came around to grandfathering the purchasers (who I guess had to go click a button somewhere), they obviously knew they were wrong on that front.
Don't sell products then change them afterwards. I paid for a thing. Then they made it so that the thing I purchased required more payment indefinitely. That's bullshit.
You can't Socrates your way into a philosophical win here, especially by repeating the same tapped vein of questions. A bait-and-switch of lifetime service for a fee to a monthly service for a fee for the same feature set is not some precedent setting benchmark nor a useful time spent arguing on the internet about. Some people are rightfully still upset by the switch. Let me suggest we move on since you've not realized we can agree to disagree yet.
This must be an error. I bought it years ago and I was grandfathered for life. Get in touch with them; they are great devs, I'm sure they'll solve this.
> I hope that Pocket Casts can do for podcast clients what Firefox in the early days and Chromium now does for browsers — push the state of the art, be manically focused on user control, and grow a more decentralized and open web.
It's pretty funny to see the claim that Chromium is "manically focused on user control" and "is growing a more decentralised and open web" :-)
That bit caught my eye as well. I read it as a backhanded swipe at Mozilla, which given the news is unnecessary. But then he goes further and strokes his buds at Google with statements of questionable validity?
Why?
Why go so far as to distract from his news? Why not mention how being OSS should ideally mean improvements in sec and privacy?
it's true though isn't it? Some people keep complaining about chromium related apps, but from different browsers to electron based apps it has without a doubt pushed open source like almost nothing else, it's sort of the OS of the web.
The OS of the web crippling extensions and plugins because it hurts its ad-business is not what I would call "being focused on user-control". They're focused on control, yes, but not in our favour.
The problem is that OP used Chromium as an example of a project "focused on user control" when in fact it is actively trying to remove control from the users's hands.
I was citing extensions and Manifest v3 as an example of that, I don't care about the feature and what people can do to go around this.
It's an OS for the web, but the web is increasingly in control of the same entity that controls chromium. And chromium helped them a lot in getting that much power over the web. I don't think that qualifies as improving openness or user control.
I just went to check it on the iPhone App store. I know that ratings might not mean anything? but, I noticed it was rated 3.9 of 5 stars vs several other podcasts with up to 6x to 90x more votes and 4.5 to 5 stars.
Is it just a popularity contest or are those other apps better?
Podcast App (4.8, 228k votes)
Google Podcasts (4.7, 10k votes)
Overcast (4.7, 33k votes)
Podcast Player - Castbox (4.8, 98k votes)
Pocket Casts (3.9, 2.8k votes)
Stitcher (4.8, 4.7k votes)
Discounting the apple podcast app (4.9, 973k votes) since it's built in and therefore has an unfair advantage.
Might explain why it was sold if it was clear it wasn't winning. I certainly like the idea of a player that doesn't report to someone my interests.
A decent portion of those negative reviews stem from various controversies the app has gone through over the years combined with a passionate and easily angered user base.
The main two being:
- The 7.0 UI update in which certain features such as playlists were removed & the UX streamlined.
- The move from a paid app to free with subscription.
It’s an excellent app for the most part, certainly on par with others in that list.
App developers love to pop up a 'nudge' to rate the app, because they know people are nice, and also, they want the fsking popup to go away, so people know that 1-5 stars is the only way to dismiss it and go with 5.
An open-source app will have... passionate users. Great way to shoot ourselves in the foot here.
Is this fully open-source, or just the clients? eg. can you use them with out any interaction with the pocket cast server, and subscribe to podcasts using open/other feeds?
The repos they linked are just for the clients. I think the server software would be way more interesting, but it's also their secret sauce so it unlikely they'll open source that.
I'm with you that allowing the clients to connect to a different sync server (gpodder, etc) would be a great feature. Though, again, I don't see that happening because it would cut into their subscription service.
Hmmm, if that's the case, then except for those who don't mind being locked in, its not clear what the motivation is to contribute.
Though I suppose if there is enough benefit to the free product (I'm not that familiar with it) - and confidence it will remain free - that might be a draw.
Perhaps there is also potential for it to be forked for a genuinely open service - I'm just a bit sceptical about "open source" that doesn't keep the implied convention to be fully independent, but perhaps that's unfair or unrealistic here.
Hope someone can add a feature for recording snippets, and maybe even one for bookmarks with notes.
One of the hardest things to keep track of, getting back to the interesting pieces of a podcast. Every episode I listen to has something worth remembering, right now managing that is truly cumbersome / time consuming.
I believe Podverse does that. It's an F-Droid podcast app with a paid subscription. I don't love it overall but like you I believe clips are a good feature.
PocketCasts has a feature called _Volume Boost_ which boosts the sound level. This is often helpful in some podcasts where the audio level is a bit too low in some sections.
To my knowledge, Antennapod does not have this. I've been using it for over a year now.
AntennaPod has a volume reduction setting that is per podcast which solves the same problem, but from the opposite side if the spectrum. All of the podcasts that I subscribe to that have poor volume levels are all too loud. I'm sure there are lots of others that are too low though.
This is amusing to me, as my perpetual problem with phone audio is that everything is too loud. I am repeatedly tapping between the lowest tick and full mute, because I am already at the bottom of the standard curve.
A couple of years ago I downloaded every podcast app I could find to try them, and landed on pocket casts, I've found it the best organised for how I want to listen, and this is great news on top of that!
Now I can finally see about making a PR to show buffering status
This is great news, I love Pocket Casts. Unfortunately, with Spotify acquiring Gimlet, a good chunk of good podcasts has become paywalled, and can't be listened to with any player. On top of that, Spotify absolutely sucks for podcasts, I can never find what I've listened to and what I haven't.
I have a moment of morning when a podcast I love disappears behind a firewall, most recently Heavyweight. Then I remember there are tons of other great podcasts out there I’ve never even tried and move on with my life.
Has anyone else had issues with audio jumping forward/backward while playing episodes? I think it has to do with dynamically inserted ads causing a different version of the file to be served. As pocket casts streams by sending a range request it gets different positions in the file due to different length ads or VBR.
> The team has been working really hard to make those clients totally open source...
I wish he would have expanded on this, or at least link to something that did. It would be interesting to understand what a transition like that entails, what they did, why, etc.
I would have preferred this over the backhand swipe at Mozilla.
I was using it a few years ago, but then I switched to Google Podcasts.
I will try it again, because Google Podcasts makes a "pop" sound notification every time it begins to download new episodes and it can't be turned off in the settings. It's very annoying.
Most of my subscriptions are like that too. But there are a few creators who I support on Patreon, and they provide special feeds with extra content, etc. These paid subscriptions are a small % of my overall lineup, but not coincidentally, they're my "essentials". I don't think I'm alone!
Not to hijack the thread to advertise, but if you are looking for a one off fee podcast player, I've been using iCatcher and I really like the experience. One time fee for the app, and I really hope it stays that way. Developer is responsive and the app is really solid.
They seem to have had a rough time of it over the last few years, and seeing them end up at Automattic ("land of the misfit web toys") was nice. This is a cherry on top.